Work progresses on Liverpool heat networks
Liverpool City Council has won a Government grant to support the development of two heat networks at Paddington Village and Liverpool Waterfront.
The grant of £72,000 from the Heat Network Development Unit, part of the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, is intended to cover the costs of a specialist project manager to work across both schemes.
Paddington Village’s heat network is currently out to tender, while a feasibility study is due on the Waterfront network.
According to documents put to the council’s cabinet, there are “early indications that there is strong private sector interest” for the Waterfront project, and that there will be support “both for an invest-to-earn business case, but also as a low carbon solution taking heat from the River Mersey”.
Currently advice on the development of the heat networks is being given by external companies, but the council said the grant will enable it “to embed a person, or persons, within city council structures, to develop the expertise, contracts and change management processes”.
In July, Peel Energy announced it would be developing a heat network at Liverpool Waters, under the name Mersey Heat. The first phase of the network will be centred on existing buildings around Princes Dock along with planned new developments along the waterfront. The heat network will support space heating and hot water provision within the buildings. Peel also has a heat network at MediacityUK.
Nationally there is a policy and funding drive to introduce more local heat networks across the UK, to improve the resilience of energy generation, reduce carbon and ensure heat supplies that are not currently exploited become more embedded in UK energy and power mix.
However, Liverpool City Council points out that “heat networks have significant capital costs and operational costs, and only projects that show a strong business case for long-term income generation would go forward”.
Two further reports are due to come before Liverpool’s cabinet in spring 2019; the results of the Waterfront heat network feasibility study, and the business case for the establishment of an independent energy services company for Paddington Village.
It’s always on the Liverpool side of the water. The Wirral isn’t even an afterthought.
By Prenton Paul
Hot air, Liverpool City Council is great at that.
By Tony
Maybe if WMBC applied for their own it might happen? These projects are for LCC and for local people and not for other areas. So get on the phone and see if WMBC are looking at something similar?
By WM7
Liverpool has ripped off its Merseyside neighbours for years.
By Dee12
If they are not moaning about the bin collection, they are moaning about something else, Wirralians just want to moan.
By Brick up the Tunnels!
Get WMBC to push Peel for similar at Wirral Waters.
By Roscoe
@Brick up the Tunnels!. There is no one who moans and complains as much as a Liverpudlian.
By Dee 12
Liverpool has up-beat mentality, it’s almost in the DNA. I think you’ll find a lot more moaning in other parts of the country.
By Roscoe
Funny that Roscoe. Anything slightly hinting at a negativity about Liverpool and they have to hire extra telephone staff to handle the complaints.
By Anonymous
Not sure why people are complaining that LCC is not doing anything for the Wirral. That would be WMBC’s responsibility in this case. Given that Peel are also involved in Wirral Waters perhaps something could be done here.
If you did want Liverpool to do things on the Wirral side then Wirral MBC should be absorbed into LCC. Personally, I think this would make sense, so long as council jobs were preserved Wirral-side (being a big local employer). It might encourage more development on Birkenhead river front side, which has a lot of potential.
PS – only lived on the Wirral for 2 years but for me this area definitely feels part of Liverpool city area – which is a good thing!
By Chris
Liverpool has a beat up mentality not a up beat mentality
Everyone in the world knows that
By Sea Monkey
Having worked as a contractor for WMBC for 8 years, believe you me all you do is moan, my ears are working properly now after finishing there!
By Brick up the Tunnels!
Wirral needs to cut ties with Merseyside and the LCR full stop. It must not get absorbed more into it. Wirral is Wirral, not a part of Liverpool.
By Belmont
Not sure if Wirral are – but Cheshire West and Chester definitely are.
By Julia Guardham
Witral needs to get a grip and clean up it’s act and stop moaning and blaming !
Start working with its neighbours because without pulling its wieght it will continue to fall behind the rest of the City region plus the CH postcode is a myth as being in the Liverpool City Region would be more beneficial if you pull your socks up and just get on with it .
WIRRAL is not a City Liverpool is the wirral City , Geography
By Ryan
No wonder we are lagging behind in investment and infrastructure, goodness knows who reads this continuous tripe and arguing and must think what’s the point of investing?
By Man on bicycle
@Belmont that will not change the status of the Wirral , stop blaming Liverpool Wirral council are in the dark ages and so are the people who elected them.
Liverpool is changing for the better you only have to look over the water from our shamful skyline to see this.
By Graham
But ar these persons commenting actually fromLiverpool or the Wirral?
By Anonymous
I thought Liverpudlians just hated Mancs, it seems they don’t like anyone without an L1 post code
By sad
As someone from Wirral, it is definitely part of the Liverpool City Region and it’s deluded small-minded snobbery to pretend it isn’t. Even the alleged ‘posh’ bits are mainly 20th century suburban outgrowths of the city and industrial North Wirral, maybe with a rump of some old, long gone agricultural villages it’s more romantic to pretend your connected to. This sort of Borough balkanisation has held the whole region back. Both Liverpool and Wirral Councils have had plenty of issues, hopefully the LCR administration can keep thinking bigger and banging heads together.
By SP
OMG a picture of Liverpool and they all go mental.
By Anonymous
Compare the house prices between the Wirral and Liverpool, that’s all you need to know.
By Carl
Good for Liverpool! Some people need to accept Liverpool is changing for the better, it’s a great place to live and work with lovely people, great architecture and a bustling nightlife. Get over it nay-sayers, you are becoming boring.
By Monkey-see
Well said, Monkey-see… Liverpool’s coming on fine and Wirral will be part of that. The negative comments don’t come from Liverpool or the Wirral, and the vast majority of us would disown them if they did.
By Roscoe.
I always class myself as Cheshire and not Merseyside
By Anonymous
This sounds like the old Soviet model of delivering heating and hot water.
By Bryn Gerard
As far as the Wirral whiners are concerned, they think they are being left out. But I must remind you that the Wirral did not want to be part of a larger community and fought tooth and nail to remove themselves from any associations with Liverpool. My favourite quote regarding the Wirral is
“The wilderness of Wirral:
few lived there
Who loved with a good heart
either God or man”
Sir Gawain
By Bryn Gerard
One river but worlds apart.
By Lower Heswall
You may class yourself as Cheshire Anon, but reality tells a different story. Move to Crewe if you want to live in actual Cheshire.
By SP
Dear Anonymous, Yes, I too am a Cheshire Lad. Somebody, with powers not given to them by me, renamed my birthplace Tameside, some fictional town near London, I always thought, closed down our town hall and lcoal services, and then said we were part of something called Greater Manchester. The Ministry of We-Define-Your-Identity in London should be abolished and local democracy introduced. They try it in many European countries and it works. But we have not had any democracy since the Norman-French invasion and the Harrying of the North. What has this got to do with Propery Development? Not much. Sorry.
By James Yates
When you look at the local government reorganisation of 1974, it’s pretty obvious that Greater Manchester was one of the more successful creations. If you are in, say, Rochdale, Oldham or Tameside being Integrated into the UK’s 3rd biggest metropolitan area is a platform that supports economic well-being. GM is like the EU in miniature.
By Rich X
I blame the Normans for all of this.
By Harold
From Canada myself and proud to be so, live currently in UK.
Visited Manchester , Leeds and London and settled in Liverpool my home city my family visit twice a year and love the place.
By NATHAN
Rich x the point is many many people didn’t want to be classed as GM and still don’t. People have their own identities, this shouldn’t be ignored!
By Lancs lad
I think more from the rest of Merseyside DO NOT class themselves as from Liverpool,compared to the West Midlands calling themselves Brum, and Greater Manchester who see themselves as Manc. The same with Leeds.
By Belmont
Dear Belmont. I do not believe that folk who live in “Greater Manchester”, whatever that it, consider themselves as “Mancs”. Maybe folk who live in the City of Manchester do. Many folk who live in the government administration area called Greater Manchester are in fact, from Cheshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Lancashire (the latter are Lancashire Lads and Lasses not Mancs). Also, I know folk who are from Oldham, Rochdale and Wigan. They would smack your legs if you called them Mancs, so keep your socks pulled up.
By James Yates
As someone from Bury, I am in no way a ‘Manc’, absolutely nothing to do with them. Always put Lancashire down on my address and always will. As someone who looks objectively at both Liverpool and Manchester (Come on Liverpool FC by the way), people from Liverpool dont half moan!
By PS
Harold…don’t be silly, the Vikings started it!
By Ragnor
@James Yates – well said sir, I am indeed a Lancashire lad and proud to be so!
By Wigan Lad
This is like ‘what did the Romans ever do for us’ apart from a tram network, an airport, an orbital motorway, a police force, a devolution deal, a waste management authority, a cycle network, a mediacity, a sportcity, a medical research cluster.
By Rich X
@Ragnor, surely it was the Romans, whatever did they do for us?
By Boudica
People in Formby speak as though they are part of Liverpool and they are proud if it, yet they live two thirds of the way up the coast towards Southport. All the locals have Liverpool accents, some of them soft like mine but many of them as strong as in the centre of Liverpool especially the young people.
By Roscoe
All “Merseysides” money is spent on Liverpool.
By Anonymous
Dear me, money for the Council to employ somebody. Lost in the fog of their ineptitude and inertia. Why not employ somebody through Arup’s or another legitimate company with a semblance of expertise in this area, or indeed Steve Rotherham’s office? The Council’s reputation possibly at an all-time low, yet still will the conceit to ‘lead’ on matters they have no expertise on.
By John Smith