Kingston Maurward College receive a £2M estate grant
The money is part of the public sector decarbonisation scheme
The College will use the money to invest in the estate as part of the public sector decarbonisation scheme via Salix.
The Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme provides grants for public sector bodies to fund heat decarbonisation and energy efficiency measures.
This grant will be used to create a new district heating scheme on the historic estate using ground source heat pumps, removing the need for oil and fossil fuel usage on the estate.
This will help to significantly reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants.
Principal and CEO, Luke Rake, said:
“This is a transformational scheme for Kingston Maurward. We are very reliant on oil and LPG currently for large amounts of heating and hot water, and as a College, are working towards becoming Carbon Net-Zero by 2025; a hugely ambitious target, we are thrilled to be one of the few colleges in the FE sector successful in our bid. We have worked very hard on this and had significant support from Low Carbon Dorset and our partners Re-Energise Group as consultants to bring this to Dorset. It promises to be a flagship model for historic estates and colleges in ways to reduce carbon and improve sustainability.
"As a land and environment college, we know our students have great concern over the current climate and ecological challenges facing us all, and it’s our aim to be a beacon of excellence in this regard.
"We are starting additional programmes this September as part of our continued growth in business and land management. We still have much to do, but recent work with the national FE environmental group on which I sit, alongside the Association of Colleges, supporting the agenda, means we are in a great place to move forward onto even bigger and better things.”