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Community Renewal Fund

Community Renewal Fund

In December 2021, the York & North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership launched a programme of activities funded by the UK Government through the UK Community Renewal Fund (CRF), entitled ‘Delivering a Carbon-Negative energy system in North Yorkshire’.

The programme consisted of the development of local area energy plans for the region, and a series of feasibility studies across decarbonising transport, buildings and energy supply. In December 2022, the programme was completed, over-delivering on its projected outputs and outcomes.

LAEPs map

Local Area Energy Plans (LAEPs)

A well-planned transition to net zero energy systems can save billions compared to an uncoordinated approach. Under the 2020 Carbon Abatement Pathways research, we articulated:

  • what changes would be needed to reach net zero
  • how big those would have to be (i.e. how many heat pumps we would need to install)
  • when we need to make those changes
  • an outline for how to go about implementing these changes

Local Area Energy Plans (or LAEPs) allow us to research effective technologies and approaches to address these changes for each area in York & North Yorkshire.

LAEPs were developed for all of North Yorkshire (using the CRF support) as well as the City of York, who provided their own funding to ensure we could deliver a coordinated approach to energy systems transition across our region.

The documents below constitute the full Y&NY Local Area Energy Plan, including an overview of the full region, individual LAEP areas, model and data assumptions, and a deep-dive case study for the village of Stokesley. 

York & North Yorkshire LAEP – Overarching document
Harrogate and the Dales LAEP A1 corridor LAEP The Vale, Moors and Coast LAEP
City of York LAEP Case Study LAEP – Stokesley

Y&NY LAEP – Modelling approach and data sources

You can also explore some of the outputs using this interactive web tool.

See the plans in your area

Evaluation

The programme of activity above was evaluated independently by Thrive Economics and the Centre for Sustainable Energy. They concluded that the programme had made the most of the opportunity afforded by the funding and had over-delivered on its outputs whilst remaining within the time and budget allocated. They made a number of recommendations for next steps with the programme and how to build upon and improve delivery of similar programmes in the future.

CRF evaluation report

Next steps

All elements of the programme are now being utilised either to seek capital funding to implement the recommended actions, or to inform development of local and regional policy to deliver against the York & North Yorkshire Routemap to Carbon Negative. If you would like to be involved with the forward activities of any of the above projects, please contact programme lead Katie Privett via enquiries@ynylep.com

 

Notes to editors: The UK Community Renewal Fund is a UK Government programme for 2021/22. This aims to support people and communities most in need across the UK to pilot programmes and new approaches to prepare for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. It invests in skills, community and place, local business, and supporting people into employment. 

For more information, visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-community-renewal-fund-prospectus

 

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