Salt Ayre Leisure Centre makes great strides in reducing its carbon footprint

Salt Ayre Leisure Centre is passionate about providing a friendly and welcoming atmosphere within which members of their local community can embrace a healthy and active lifestyle.

Lancaster City Council declared a climate emergency after councillors unanimously voted to work towards creating a zero-carbon district by 2030.

To prioritise resources and enable a data-led approach, the council developed a CO2 emissions dashboard that demonstrated nearly 60 per cent of emissions were from heating council buildings, with Salt Ayre Leisure Centre being identified as being of the highest C02 emitters accounting for 34 per cent of the council’s natural gas emissions.

The council received £ 6.8 million in funding from Phase 1, of the government Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) to replace the leisure centre’s gas boilers with a two-stage heat pump system, external LED lighting and upgraded glazing to reduce energy consumption.

A solar farm has also been built on the adjacent disused landfill site at Salt Ayre to generate electricity. Comprising nearly 3,000 panels, the solar farm generates enough electricity to fully power the centre during peak times, enabling the leisure centre to become ‘off-grid’ for up to 12 hours per day, with the remainder supported by a REGO-backed green energy tariff.

Having ready partners and a streamlined process was vital given the timelines and as a result, the full project was delivered within 12 months of funding being granted whilst maintaining an open and operational leisure centre, with disruptive work scheduled overnight.

Onsite C02 emissions generated by Salt Ayre Leisure Centre have now been eliminated following the completion of this multi-million-pound project, making it one of the first leisure centres to be entirely carbon neutral.