Concerns have been raised over a £1.3million bill the Isle of Wight Council will face to upgrade the heating system, lighting and windows at County Hall in Newport.
As part of the council’s goal to hit carbon net zero by 2030, the authority has been carrying out work on its buildings to make them more energy efficient. Through the public sector decarbonisation fund, the authority was awarded more than £2.5million in the first phase to complete work at 10 sites on the Island.
In a next phase, £701,767 from the government and £600,000 of Isle of Wight Council money will now be used to install air source heat pumps and LED lighting, as well as upgrading the current heating system and windows at County Hall.
Speaking at the council’s corporate scrutiny committee meeting on Tuesday, Councillor Joe Robertson, Conservative leader at County Hall, questioned if the investment should go ahead due to the potential future of the building.
As part of the draft Island Planning Strategy, the Conservative group was successful in securing a feasibility study of the land around County Hall, involving the building, to assess its suitability for housing. It had been an ambition of the Tory group before the 2021 local elections to build housing on the brownfield land in Newport, demolishing County Hall and using another council building as its main hub.
Cllr Robertson said £1.3million seemed like an awful lot of money to invest in a building that sits half empty with a question mark over its future, at a time when families face a crisis in their own household.
The ruling Alliance administration, though, has said there are no immediate plans to demolish County Hall. Responding to Cllr Robertson’s point, Councillor Jonathan Bacon, cabinet member for the environment, said as it stands County Hall exists and the council need to make sure it is as green and functional as possible. He said he did not know what the timescale of the feasibility study would be or what it may suggest.
Cllr Bacon said the measures are the sort other people should be looking to install in their own buildings and no one was going to do that with a building that has a known short life but that was not the situation the council was dealing with at County Hall.
Councillor Michael Lilley said it had a legal obligation to ensure its staff had adequate heating.
More of our money down the pan…
Another scandalous bill to chase the globalist fraud of preventing ‘climate change’ – remember that behind this is the WEF great reset and their promise that by 2030, the average citizen ‘will own nothing and be happy’ – the multi trillion pound nation wrecking impoverishment plan of net zero is designed to play a big part in that – if any of them were serious about emissions, rather than simply undermining our lifestyles and freedoms, then they’d stop adding a million new carbon producers to our population each year (including the millions of tons of concrete, plastic, steel, wood, packaging, food production etc needed to house, feed, clothe, educate and employ them)
If we really want to solve the housing and energy problems we should just exterminate the over 70s
Almost all of them are unproductive and are a huge drain on society with their medical care needs. Just bump them all off and render them down for fuel. We would save £billions in pension payment, millions of tons of CO2 and free up housing so that our green fields don’t need to be built on.
Perfect solution.
Wow your a sick little puppy aren’t you, how did you manage to send this in from your padded cell. You really shouldn’t be allowed outside to mingle with elderly people. So I guess your work, you do work????? doesn’t take any money from these over 70’s you would like to “render down” Go to Russia and move in with Putin, I’m sure you would be the best of buddies.
Someone should remind you of that vile comment if and when you reach 69…
i always knew you were a lefty worky- but this is a new low, even for you.
perhaps you should remember – if it hadn’t have been for those over 70’s working over the previous 50 years and more, those under the age of 30 now wouldn’t have had any electric, food, gas, clothing, clean roads, schools or police etc.
whilst i loathe spongers, those that have worked hard all their lives, are entitled to rest into their twilight years on the money they have saved up throughout their working lives.
when you turn 70 – i trust you will take a trip to the nearest cliff and follow your own advice
And I’ll be first in line at your front door when you are 69 and 363 days. Not that you’d be much good for fuel, crap doesn’t burn that well.
Well you will hopefully be an over 70s in the not too distant future so I hope you are looking forward to being stood up against a wall and shot. Plus you won’t have a free carer to look after your kids when you want to go somewhere.
Those over 70 year olds have paid taxes so that you can sit at home on your arse and claim benefits.
Councillor Michael Lilley said it had a legal obligation to ensure its staff had adequate heating.
ha – the building already has heating, so that isn’t going to wash.
the reality is that the councillors are looking for ways to ensure that their work environment is nice and toasty and as comfortable as possible, whilst the locals freeze at home, worried about putting on the heating.
If you drive past county hall in the small hours you will see how many lights have been left on .. staff ain’t there on overtime!
That’s right, squander more of our money on a useless exercise. How many decades will it take to recoup that amount of money in the sake of political posturing?
What a disgraceful waste of taxpayers money. It’s not an efficient building, it’s a dinosaur. And a half empty dinosaur.
Unlike Wightlink, you do not make tens of millions in profit every year, so tough, find another way to stay warm.
Install LED lighting?!
I think that a large proportion of people have already gone down that route at home. Either by replacing individual lights as they wear out, or by a system of gradual replacement.
But, as usual, the IDIOT IoW Council splash out horrendous amounts of Public Money whilst banging the ECO Drum!
You can guarantee that they will pay way above the rate to replace their lighting etc, etc. But, hey ho, it’s not THEIR money they are spending is it?!
‘Carbon net Zero’ is a huge scam and will cost all of us dearly. The Globalists and the World Economic Forum appear to want to destroy our lives as we know it by returning us to the dark ages and introducing communism whist taxing us under the guise of ‘climate change’. Resist!
What right have the council got to steal more of our money on systems that have been confirmed by the experts as poor and unreliable. Air source heat pumps are still in early development. Even Octopus energy are saying they are not yet up to a standard required.
Who on earth do the council pay to get crap advise?
This feels like an extremely foolish thing to do for a building that is desperately past its use-by-date, with murmurings about its future being discussed for years now.
Cut to three years time, when they’ve spent over £1mil and then announce they’ll be knocking it down.
More inefficiency at council – who’da thunk?
The county hall building is a waste of space and an eye sore. Imagine how many flats they could make it into… or turn into a care home to relieve St mary’s of bed hoggers…
No problem just tax us more they will fix it then knock it down and build a new one soon just you see…half empy funny an’it ..
Omg ,,,,,, you have fleeced us mere cash cow’s for many a year ….
Now you want to rinse us dry ??????
You have you’re air con you have electric car’s (which by the way are not as green as you think the batteries ? )
You constantly bemoan that you are short of cash ,well we know why ,you waste it on yourselves…..
Cut services charge more that appears to be your method ….
How about cutting our council tax and putting less into the council pen’s pot ?????
Lol pigs will fly 1st !!!!!
these enviromentalist clowns need to be put in their place, the looming energy crisis is a result of the lies and misinformation spouted by these liars as “truth” Once they have their useless heat pumps, the idiots will be bleating about their filthy electric vehicles needing replacing because the batteries have had it, and so it will go on, its free money to these greenwashing fools.
Oh yes not forgetting the new computer system!!¡!!!
And the elephant in the room ….
Although not in the council office …. the non floating bridge….
Well it has to be made safe and warm for when it is used as a home for refugees and the homeless.
After all, does anyone actually physically work in the building now?
The best thing is, the police across the road can now keep an eye on them.
So get the rest of the council out and get all those homeless people that we supposedly have lolling about in.
We could even give it a new name,
Discounted Hall or perhaps Hall of Multiple Opportunists?
It will be cheaper to bulldoze it.
Many workers are working from Home.
Part of it is a 60s eyesore, chuck as much money as you like at it, you’ll never make it Eco friendly. It’ll be like Triggers broom.
I always thought a Trigger character was running IW COUNCIL
I suggest that instead of worrying about net zero, which is a fallacy, the council spend this money on the toilets near the bus station in Newport. I don’t know what the Ladies is like, but the gents is disgusting. Still I suppose it is our money so they don’t care a jot.
County Hall is an eyesore, not a decent workplace, and expensive to run and maintain. That won’t get any better over the years. Let’s not just look at County Hall in isolation.There are literally hundreds of other council-owned buildings on the IOW including 36 maintained schools (on a patch of land just 380km square). We need proper strategy. Start by showing us a list of all the buildings, their operating costs, the schedule of anticipated necessary investments over the next 10 to 20 years, and an assessment of which ones are strictly necessary. Consider consolidating and cutting down before you chuck millions at Toad Hall.
What puzzles me, is what difference does it make improving the green credentials of a building on the Isle of Wight? when countries like China, India, the USA and God knows how many other countries are still burning fossil fuel. Would making county hall net zero in the near future make any difference? Me thinks not
I hope that Isle of Wight council invest in Solar Panels to power the air source heat pumps to take advantage of one of the sunniest counties in the UK.
At home our gas and electricity bills were soaring especially recently as autumn approaches so we are investing in an air source heat pump to replace our gas boiler and having 12 solar panels fitted on the roof to power it. We will be energy self-sufficient and could finish up by selling some of our unused energy back to the supplier in the sunnier months.