York: Funds reaching £3.8bn needed to hit net zero target

A local area energy plan for York has been drawn up over the last eight months, covering areas including buildings, heating, transport and energy generation

York will need almost £4bn of investment if the city is to decarbonise enough to hit a 2030 net zero target, councillors have heard.

A local area energy plan, drawn up over the last eight months, covers subjects including buildings, heating, transport and energy generation.

It identifies requirements including 73,000 heat pump installations and 91,000 fully electric vehicles.

City of York Council was told "big challenges require big investment".

The plan, which aims to find cost-effective ways of remove carbon dioxide emissions from its energy system, also identifies the need for:

• 20,000 new connections to a district heat network

• 44,100 homes retrofitted with insulation improvements

• 24% of homes generating their own electricity with rooftop solar panels

Karl Sample, from Energy Systems Catapult, which produced the plan, told a meeting of the climate emergency scrutiny committee that the targets require the retrofitting of 32 homes and the installation of 1,500 solar panels per working day.

"The scale of this is very, very challenging," he said.

Shaun Gibbons, the council's head of carbon reduction, said: "These are big challenges that require a big level of investment - around £3.8bn - but there are also significant opportunities.

"Energy bills will be cheaper, our homes will be more comfortable with reduced instances of damp and mould, local air quality will be better and local communities will be able to own [energy] generation assets."

Councillors were told the plan was not just for the council but the whole area and would require investment from government and private finance, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Claire Foale, City of York Council's assistant director of policy and strategy, said: "Our challenge is to try and capitalise on this plan and get that megabucks coming in from external investment, private sector, insurance companies, whoever, to try to accelerate some of the schemes as much as possible."