Belfry wins £14m deal to heat Barton Village

WARRINGTON-based Belfry Group has been appointed by City West Housing Trust in Salford to install a £14.3m EcoPod system in 236 homes at its Barton Village scheme.

Barton Village will be one of the first schemes in the country to use the technology, which Belfry said will not only reduce fuel costs and carbon emissions by more than 40% but also incorporate a building management system that automatically alerts landlords when ‘at risk’ tenants fail to heat homes properly.

The EcoPod Heating System was designed by Belfry managing director Keith Rimmer to alleviate fuel poverty in high-rise tower blocks – of which Barton Village has four.

Colette McKune, director of asset management at City West Housing Trust, said: “Barton Village is a flagship regeneration project and we have been looking for innovative solutions in a number of different areas, not least on the heating side.

“In the past we have had fuel poverty issues in our blocks so we knew we had to develop a renewable strategy that was going to provide a solution for our tenants.

“This solution from Belfry enables us to heat properties at a cost that tenants can more readily afford so we are addressing the fuel poverty issue head on.

The system uses a cascading boiler as opposed to storage heating, which can be expensive to operate.

Miller said: “Once they saw the EcoPod, and some of the cost savings it can deliver, they knew they had to incorporate it at Barton Village because there isn’t another product like it on the market.

“We recently fitted one in Hyde and the results were remarkable. It was a 16-storey tower block, with 96 apartments plus tenant areas, and on one day earlier this year it cost just £12.90 to provide heating and hot water for the whole building, which worked out at 13p per apartment.

“We also managed to dramatically reduce the building’s carbon footprint, reducing CO2 emissions from 160,000kg to 69,000kg.”