Last updated 15:12, Friday, 17 October 2008

A FURNESS community hall is set to become one of the most environmentally friendly in the county.

GOING GREEN: Lowick Community Hall development co-ordinator James Wood (left) with committee vice chairman Rob Dove holding a state of art photovoltaic electricity generating tile

Work to install a special photovoltaic roof at Lowick Community Hall was expected to finish today.

The “green” roof will now transform daylight into electricity – helping to keep running costs and bills low. Any extra power not used by the hall will be sold back to the National Grid at a set rate.

Project coordinator James Wood said the equipment used had been purchased with the help of a number of grants.

“We didn’t know the roof needed replacing when we started this project.

“Thankfully, we looked into what grants were available to help us and decided to try to raise the funds for something that would harness power for the hall at the same time,” he added.

Grants had been provisionally approved for the hall from the Northern Rock Foundation and more recently, a similar scheme run by troubled bank HBOS. But funding applications to the National Lottery, the Lake District National Park Authority’s Sustainable Development Fund, N Energy andDefra proved successful.

The photovoltaic roof is one of a series of measures designed to overhaul the popular community hall in a sustainable way.

Other ideas incorporated into the project are an air source heat pump and sheep’s wool insulation for the roof.

Mr Wood said: “We have been working on this project for four years now and it has been hard work at times, particularly finding our way through grant applications.

“But it was worth the time and effort to have come so far with it and to have such state of the art technology at the hall which will make it sustainable for very many years to come.”