More than a million homes in the UK rely on oil for heating because they are not connected to the gas grid. Quite a few of them are around here and there are 150 in the village of Swaffham Prior in Cambridgeshire. Villagers there are hoping to become the first community in the country to switch to zero-carbon heating by connecting their homes to a network heated by ground source heat pumps.
It can cost around £15,000 to convert a single home to run on a heat pump but in Swaffham Priors no-one will have to pay anything in advance if they sign up to the scheme before construction starts, possibly in the spring. One resident there says she spends an average of £3,750 per year on 7,500 litres of oil to heat her five-bedroom house. She hopes to save around £500 per year on heating. It would also mean cleaner air and there would be no need for 1,000 visits to the village by tankers delivering oil.
It’s reported that a number of villages in other counties including Oxfordshire are keen to adopt similar schemes. Does anyone know which Oxfordshire villages are in the frame? And could it ever happen around here?
Editors
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