A village in Leicestershire has shown

how with good planning and committed

individuals, ambitious community

projects are achievable. In just over a

year, it has managed to deliver

renewable energy projects with Big

Lottery Fund support that will also

provide sustainable future funding

for the community.

C A S E S T U D Y : C O M M U N I T Y A C T I O N

A community takes action on renewable energy

North Kilworth, in Leicestershire, is experiencing changes

that are common across England’s villages – it has lost

three farms and the local shop, plus one of its two pubs has

recently been sold for conversion to residential properties,

while employment for the vast majority of residents

requires commuting to larger towns and cities.

However, village residents are responding to these

challenges proactively. They have set up a Community

Interest Company – Village Power CIC – that is dedicated

to improving the village, ensuring it has access to renewable

energy and establishing future funding streams that will

provide a sustainable local economy for the village.

An early success has been the securing of £60,000 of Big

Lottery Fund support in 2011. This funding came as a result

of public votes for the project in the Jubilee People’s

Millions competition – a joint Big Lottery and ITV initiative

– and shows how Village Power CIC has galvanized the

support of the whole community and others in the region.

Solar statistics

The 57 solar panels that have been installed on the roofs

of community buildings in North Kilworth are expected

to deliver the following yields and cost benefits:

These are naturally estimates given the variability of solar

radiation from year to year and location to location. The

calculations also assume 50% of the energy generated is

used within the building and the rest is exported to the

national grid.

Building No of

panels Predicted

yield kWh Annual

total

benefit School 18 3,087 £1, 539 Village hall 9 1,378 £686

Sports club 30 5,103 £2,263

“Village Power CIC is an example of a community

coming together and we hope it may inspire

others to do the same. It can be time consuming

and challenging, but the rewards are fantastic."

Stuart Dainton, Director

C A S E S T U D Y : C O M M U N I T Y A C T I O N

The funding has allowed Village Power CIC to install solar

panels on three community buildings in the village in

order to reduce carbon emissions. It has also funded

the planting of 500 trees – including oaks, beeches and

a wide range of fruiting species – on village green spaces

to help remove carbon from the atmosphere.

The solar panels were installed by Sun Switch, part of

National Energy Services, in the winter of 2011 – in time

to benefit from Government’s ‘feed-in’ tariffs (tariffs were

set to start reducing for new systems installed after April

2012 by about eight per cent a year). They now sit on the

school roof, village hall and sports club, with all the energy

generated being sold to the Good Energy company –

Britain’s only 100 per cent renewable energy supplier.

Village Power CIC is monitoring the impact of the panels

in terms of how much carbon is being saved and how much

money is being generated for the village and the school

children can easily access this information via a display

screen in the school.

The project’s impact can be seen in another way too –

approximately 20 other properties in the village have

now installed solar panels on their roofs. The community

has also shown its support by attending community tree

planting events in November 2011 and early 2012, with

groups of all ages helping plant trees.

This small village in the heart of England is demonstrating

how with clear ideas and a few committed individuals,

funding can be accessed to bring significant changes to

a community. It definitely takes a motivated local team and

a realistic assessment of time required, but projects like

this help unlock the passion within a community to bring a

multitude of benefits to all residents.

Visit: http://villagepowercic.co.uk

Community Interest Company

North Kilworth has a strong history of community activities

and there are many residents with the experience and

enthusiasm to maintain and improve the quality of rural

living across the whole community. But the community

recognized that grant funding would be essential in order to

achieve their ambitious aims and having a structure would

help enormously when it came to approaching funders and

dealing with grants.

Having investigated various options they decided to form a

Community Interest Company (CIC) – a limited company

created for those who want to conduct a business or other

activity for community benefit, and not purely for private

advantage. It has the flexibility of the familiar company form,

is relatively simple to register and set up and allows access

to a range of financing options.

Village Power CIC will reinvest all profits for the benefit of

the community and, by investing in projects that will provide

a future income, they will ensure its long term sustainability.

It provides a different model for a local community – one

which focuses on renewable energy solutions and the

promotion of a resource efficient culture, with the long

term aim of achieving enhanced local services and new

opportunities for the local residents.

For more on CICs visit: www.businesslink.gov.uk