Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is one of the main justifications for the new Civic Centre, and one I promised to cover. Whilst I accept this is a subject of little interest to Brent Green Party, I hope others will be interested.
As a BREEAM Outstanding building, the new Civic Centre will use every imaginable device to reduce emissions. The building is designed so that it should only require mechnaical ventilation on one or two days a year (although encroaching climate change may alter that).There will be an air source heat pump. The lighting will be low zoned and equipped with sensors. There will be a bio-fuel based boiler, possibly using fish oil. This could be connected to the other buildings in the Wembley area as part of a district heating scheme (which is envisaged in the Wembley Masterplan). The new building will also be equipped with a comprehensive suite of paperless technology which is already being rolled out across Brent Council.
This is in addition to measures to discourage car use, which reduce transport related carbon emissions.
Altogether, the new Civic Centre should be by far the biggest single contributor to cutting Brent Council's carbon footprint.
3 comments:
Exactly what is this suite of 'paperless technology' and, more importantly, what is it costing us, the taxpayers?
I would remind Cllr Powney that reuse of existing resources is usually ecologically preferable to the carbon expenditure entailed in extreme refurbishment of a serviceable old building and construction of a new one, which is, so far, wonderfully ecologically friendly only in the promises of architects and planners (and we all know how reliable they often turn out to be ).
Furthermore what is so ecologically friendly about fish oil? It produces carbon when burned and is only produced by either industrial scale fishing which is already hoovering up many species to the point of extinction and severe disruption of maritime and coastal food chains; or fish farming which has problems of causing localised pollution and disease spread. Does Cllr Powney have fish-oil shares or does he merely just exude it himself?
So if the ecological grounds for constructing a new civic centre are iffy, what are the real reasons for the redevelopment who profits most from the Wembley Masterplan???
This is very good news for the community. Hopefully, each family in the community will follow what the Civic Centre has started. Buying some energy-efficient appliances and looking for an alternative power source would really help reduce carbon emissions within the vicinity of your homes.
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