FUTURE residents of an affordable and sustainable housing estate in Sheffield will have access to electric pool cars and built-in recharging points after funding was secured to help make it even more eco-friendly.
The Environment Trust will install three recharging points for electric vehicles at the new Bright Green Homes development in Norfolk Park while Sheffield Council and Leeds-based car pool specialist Whizzgo will provide free Smart cars for use by res
idents.
The £5.2m housing scheme is part of one of the country's largest green regeneration projects with the first of 47 homes expected to be ready by next February.
The future residents of the Bright Green Homes, the building of which got underway earlier this year, will automatically be members of a car club.
Battery-powered cars will be available to hire for £4.95 an hour including fuel, insurance, tax, VAT and breakdown cover.
The cars are considered to be better for the environment than normal vehicles, saving up to 24 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.
Three Elecktrobays will also be installed to power any electric vehicle for free and fully recharge the cars in 12 hours.
Other residents in the area will also be invited to join the car club by paying a one-off car pool membership fee of £150, which includes a £25 one-off lifetime membership fee and £125 fully refundable insurance deposit.
Environment Trust chief executive Jon Aldenton said: "We have approached our Norfolk Park housing development holistically, ensuring not only that the housing is sustainably built, energy efficient and on the tram route into Sheffield city centre, but that the people who live there will also be able to travel by car when they need to – there are always going to be times when a car will be the most practical option."
The Elektrobays will be supplied by Brighton company Elektromotive, jointly funded by EDF Energy and the Energy Saving Trust. The points will be powered using renewable energy from solar panels on two of the Bright Green Homes apartment blocks.
To finance this the Trust is applying for a Low Carbon Buildings Programme grant from the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.
The new homes will be built using sustainable eco-friendly materials and will allow lots of natural light in.
Other ecological features in the houses include bio-diverse landscaping, rainwater collection butts, energy-saving, high-efficiency boilers and heating systems.
They will be 10 per cent larger than standard homes with high ceilings and generous layouts with the quality and design of the homes meeting high environmental standards.
Wood will be used extensively with all external walls while solar panels will provide lighting for communal areas and solar thermal panels will pre-heat domestic hot water.
The use of renewable energy and energy-efficient fixtures and fittings is expected to result in an annual fuel bill of £100 or less.
Each home will also be fitted with a mechanical extractor fan to lower the rate of air changes from the average of 7.5 to 1.2 changes per hour, reducing the need for heating and therefore cutting heating costs.
Other features include toilet cisterns which use four litres rather than the standard seven-and-a-half.
Prices for the Green homes are expected to start from £79,999 for a 70 per cent share of a one-bedroom flat.
The full article contains 573 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
