FOR the past year, Shrewsbury’s Marches Energy Agency has been assisting businesses in Shropshire to access grants and assistance to reduce their fuel bills and generate their own power.

Now, seven more businesses in Shropshire are set to make financial savings and lower their carbon footprints following successful bids to a local grant funding scheme.

The diverse range of projects with a total value of nearly £70,000 will be 50% funded under Shropshire County Council’s ‘Low Carbon Communities for Business’ programme.

This is open to businesses in and around Bishop’s Castle, Cleobury Mortimer, Ellesmere and the rural area to the South of Oswestry known as the ‘floodplain’. The Council have agreed a target with central Government of a 6% reduction in CO₂ emissions across the latter 3 communities over 3 years.

Amongst the successful applications an ‘RSPCA Freedom Foods’ accredited egg laying unit in Cleobury Mortimer will be providing its constant power requirements using a building-mounted wind turbine. Its proprietor (and possible the chickens) will be showering in water heated by the sun thanks to a solar hot water system.

In Melverley the recently refurbished Tontine Inn will be providing its hot water requirements through a solar hot water system.

Meanwhile in a Thai restaurant in Ellesmere a saving of nearly 3 tonnes of CO₂ per annum and £600 worth of electricity is to be made by simply switching from electric to gas for space and hot water heating.

The funding, which is available until April 2009, comes from AWM, the Regional Development Agency’s, key rural delivery mechanism the ‘Rural Regeneration Zone’ (RRZ).

Tristan Haynes, Project Manager at the Shrewsbury-based environmental charity, Marches Energy Agency, who are delivering the project said,

This latest round of successful applications has demonstrated that all sorts of businesses can carry out all sorts of projects to reduce the amount of energy they are using through both energy efficient and renewable energy technologies’.

If you run a small business in one of the eligible areas please see www.lowcarboncommunities.org for information on how to get an energy audit of your business and apply for grant funding under the scheme.