East Sussex Energy Partnership Scoops Green Award

The ESEP, which consists of four councils - Rother District Council, Hastings Borough Council, Wealden District Council and Eastbourne Borough Council - won the award due to the success of its campaign to provide government funded grants to help privately owned, and privately rented, households insulate their homes, and/or install renewable energy technology to save energy and cut fuel costs.

To date, 3,334 homes have benefited from the scheme with either full loft insulation, loft top up insulation, cavity wall insulation or solar hot water.

This equates to savings of 2,376.74 tonnes of CO2 emissions and 276,020 in fuel costs.The current council managed and approved scheme is a three-year programme from 2008 to 2011, and the combined energy efficiency contract for this period is 3 million.

Eastbourne Borough Council (EBC) accepted the silver trophy on behalf of the ESEP at the 16th annual Green Apple Awards ceremony, hosted at the House of Commons on Tuesday November 17.

The Green Apple Awards, organised by the Green Organisation, are presented annually in recognition of companies, councils and communities carrying out projects that enhance the environment.

This year, there were 500 nominations and the award-winning project will be featured in the next Green Book, the world's only work of reference on environmental best practice, and will receive a Green Hero Wall Shield during a special prize giving ceremony at The Tower of London next year.

Eastbourne Borough Council Cabinet spokesperson for Community, Councillor Margaret Bannister said:

''We are delighted to win this award in recognition of the success the ESEP has achieved in making East Sussex households more energy efficient and reducing fuel bills and CO2 emissions.

"The uptake so far has been fantastic and we are pleased that East Sussex residents are taking advantage of the scheme. We hope they will continue to do so as it really is a win/win situation for us all.''

The four councils appointed Climate Energy Ltd to manage and coordinate the ESEP to ensure the installation of energy saving measures to people's homes runs as smoothly as possible, with EBC managing the contracts between Climate Energy and marketing agency PRG Publicity for all four councils.

The current ESEP programme is due to run until 2011, offering the chance for qualifying homeowners or tenants to insulate their homes, or install renewable energy sources technology with the aid of government funded grants.

For more information, to see if you qualify for a grant and what savings could be made through various insulation or installations, freephone 0800 980 0901 or visit the website at: