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Balloons trigger community celebrations

Published on: 25 Jan 2012

Villagers in Staveley, near Kendal, are celebrating success after receiving £60,000 towards an unusual energy saving project, which will help reduce the carbon budget for the Lake District National Park.

Under the scheme – which received support from the LDNPA as part of its Low Carbon Lake District Project – villagers living in old properties will get help with installing “chimney balloons” to help reduce the amount of heat loss from properties.

National park officials were keen to work with Staveley community leaders to process their application, which resulted in the major grant from the Department for Energy and Climate Change.

“Rural communities often lose out in work to support energy saving. Sparse populations and a high percentage of older, hard-to-treat homes make it more difficult to act in rural areas, “said LDNPA climate change adviser Becky Willis.

“However, strong community links and a tradition of self-help mean that community-based initiatives like this are a good solution to tackling climate change. I’m delighted that Staveley has succeeded – it’s a really good example of positive community team work producing results which benefit that specific location and the Lake District as a whole,” she added.

The chimney balloons will be delivered by a team going door to door offering tailored advice on energy saving. Initial research suggests that chimney balloons could reduce substantially the air flows through a whole dwelling by between 20 to 50 per cent in traditional homes.

This project will not only include a campaign to install chimney balloons but in addition, will give valuable research data from a range of dwelling types, which will then help to increase understanding of effective measures to combat hard-to-treat homes.