Scrapping Solar Panels a Shameful Act of Waste

I was the Green Party Parliamentary Candidate for Chesterfield in 2015 but last November I joined Chesterfield Liberal Democrats. Why? Well one reason is that unlike Labour they have shown that they mean it when they talk about the environment.

Take for example the report in the Derbyshire Times last week where the Council said, "that it was not feasible to remove and reuse the Solar panels on the Queens Park Leisure Centre ..because of safety concerns and costs."

I understand that in fact several community groups expressed an interest in reusing these solar panels and one had been talking to the Council for 18 months, but due to Labour's disinterest the Council never wrote this into the demolition contract. So the demolition contractor now says that it was not possible to to dismantle the Panels individually because demolition work had already weakened the roof structure to an unsafe level. I also understand that Liberal Democrat Cllrs had been asking about the Panels for a year but only late last Wednesday afternoon did the Council tell them that the Panels were being thrown on the junk heap instead of being reused.

These Solar panels were installed by the previous Liberal Democrat Council with the help of Grant money that they had obtained and they had up to 30 years of working life left. Even if they are not as efficient as the most modern Panels in 2017 that does not alter the fact that they were already paid for and had decades of useful life left generating Green energy. They have been thrown on the scrap heap due to the utter, abysmal, failure of the Council to plan for the reuse of this valuable asset.

The simple fact is that this Labour Council ignores the calls, such as that of Chesterfield Climate Alliance, for more investment in renewable energy and for more local community renewable energy initiatives. Contrast that with the Liberal Democrat Council from 2003-2011 when they built new buildings with energy efficient measures and Green technology such as solar panels and Ground Source Heat Pumps.

Please sign our petition calling on the Council to take 'green' measures more seriously.

Yours sincerely,

Matt Genn

p.s. If, like me, you value Chesterfield's environment please consider joining the Lib Dems here, and helping us in Chesterfield