Worcester City Council has been awarded £195,000 from the UK Government’s Swimming Pool Support Fund (SPSF) to add solar panels to the roof of Perdiswell Leisure Centre.
The panels will be installed by March 2025 alongside a unit that will use the excess energy produced during the summer months to heat water for showers, fans that will recirculate warm air to reduce heating demand, and an energy efficient water recovery system that reuses and reuses water.
The council received a further £59,750 from the SPSF on behalf of the Worcester Citizens’ Swimming Baths Association for solar panels and a building management system upgrade for the swimming pool at Lower Wick in Worcester.
Lloyd Griffiths, the council’s director of operations, homes and communities, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have secured these much-needed funds, which will help reduce energy consumption at Perdiswell Leisure Center after a period of rising energy prices. bills were very challenging.
“That, combined with the environmental benefits of these new technologies, will secure the future of one of Worcester’s most popular leisure facilities.”
Rob Tyler, area manager at Freedom Leisure, which operates Perdiswell Leisure Center on behalf of the council, said: “Supporting people and communities to be more active and healthier is at the heart of everything we do, and we are pleased to be doing this can do to continue to do this and at the same time reduce our CO2 emissions.”
Co-recipients
The Perdiswell Center is not the first facility to receive significant funding from the SPSF; West Lindsey District Council has been allocated £401,500 to install hundreds of solar panels at the leisure centre.
The West Lindsey Leisure Centre, located in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, received funding as part of the government’s Swimming Pool Support Fund in its second phase, which aims to make buildings more energy efficient.
The funding will be used to install 545 photovoltaic (PV) solar panels on the roof of the pool, saving 221 MWh of annual energy production.
The changes also include moving to more energy efficient equipment, including LED lighting, variable speed drives, water saving devices and lighting sensors, and reducing energy waste through the installation of pool covers.
In addition, despite not being a publicly funded project, Tonbridge Swimming Pool in Kent has started installing an 80kWp solar panel on its roof to supply the building with cheap renewable electricity.
The installation of the 180-panel array follows a recent emissions audit carried out by Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council, which found that more than half of the borough’s total greenhouse gases are produced by the leisure centre.
