Tel: 03450 450 500

Email: sustainability@scambs.gov.uk (This link will open in a new window)

About these pages

The Low-Carbon Living pages have just been launched and are currently under review. You are welcome to send your comments to sustainability@scambs.gov.uk (This link will open in a new window)

Our Partners

South Cambridgeshire's Environment Group
Help address the issues and monitor the progress of the Community Strategy, which contains a series of actions to help improve the quality of life across the district and that tackle climate change.

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Climate Change Network
A cross-sectoral partnership providing support to public and private sector organisations as well as local communities seeking to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

South Cambridgeshire Strategic Partnership
The South Cambridgeshire Strategic Partnership (or LSP: Local Strategic Partnership) is a partnership between the council and various partners to work together towards achieving economic, environmental and social standards for the district.

2.3 ACTIONS FROM THE COUNCIL

In this section:

Actions within the Council
Services to the residents - direct
Services to the residents - indirect

Services to the residents - Indirect

Social housing stock

The Council's social housing stock contains approximately 6,000 properties. The Council's annual maintenance and refurbishment programme will continue to identify opportunities for ensuring a higher percentage of the properties are made more energy efficient and achieve a higher Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs).

Other actions include:

Calculate and monitor the housing stock's annual greenhouse gas emissions
Use of sustainable building materials
Monitor and review the installation of energy efficient heating systems, specifically condensing boilers
Monitor and review the installation of renewable energy systems, specifically solar water heating collectors
Raise tenant awareness of energy efficiency measures

South Cambridgeshire District Council is also monitoring the development of low carbon communities at Northstowe and Cambridge East. The lessons learnt during the development of those sustainable communities will help in the building of further low carbon communities in other locations.

Case Study - Arbury Park

Arbury Park is a 900 home development on the northern fringe of Cambridge. An innovative fund has been used to support the installation of micro and macro renewable technologies (e.g. solar hot water systems, solar PV, small scale wind). The funding has also helped the establishment of a Community Car Scheme.

Urban development

Given that new buildings are typically designed to last between fifty to one hundred years, there is a growing recognition that new developments will need to be properly 'climate proofed'. Failure to do so could result in higher insurance premiums and maintenance costs. It may also affect the future saleability of buildings prone to the
risk of higher temperatures, flooding and subsidence and which have high ongoing energy costs.

The impact of flooding upon the built environment and the local drainage systems needs careful consideration. In particular, managing and containing surface water require some innovative solutions, for example, the installation of grey water recycling, rainwater harvesting and sustainable urban drainage systems in new developments.

Case Study - Northstowe

Northstowe is a new town development comprising approximately 8000 new homes, shops and community facilities. The Sustainable Energy Partnership was formed to ensure that Northstowe is a 'low carbon' development. This was achieved through the delivery of investment in energy efficiency as part of an integrated sustainable energy system that also included low carbon generation and energy distribution.

Case study - Social houses in Cambourne

The Circle 33 Housing Group have built an award winning low energy social housing scheme at Cambourne. The sixteen houses have various low energy measures including whole house heat recovery systems, high levels of insulation, solar hot water panels, high efficiency condensing boilers, photo-voltaic panels which will provide approximately 30% of the total electricity requirements for the inhabitant. All the building materials were sustainably sourced and water butts have been provided to aid water conservation. All the measures combined will save an estimated 5 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually.