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Swaffham Prior
The retrofit village A Cambridgeshire village is leading the way with a rural heat network that is powered by entirely renewable technology WORDS JANET HALL, LINEUNDRAWN
Project Board Council
© Cambridgeshire County Council
T
he term ‘district heating’, typically prompts thoughts of large urban areas full of new homes that might only need heating on a frosty day. Suburban housing, rural villages and conservation areas, are unlikely to cross your mind. Yet, a village in East Cambridgeshire is set to change that: it leads the UK in delivering not just a rural heat network but one that is powered by entirely renewable technology. Swaffham Prior’s picturesque high street is lined by Grade II listed properties, a pub, school and two churches. The village has many house types, having undergone spurts of generational expansion over the past four decades. The latest phase, delivered five years ago by Swaffham Prior Community Land Trust
includes eight homes each fitted with air source heat pumps. It was this project that caused trust directors Emma Fletcher and Mike Barker to consider what a future without oil would look like for the village. What risks would the future pricing of oil pose to those on lower incomes? Could every household afford an air source heat pump, and is every house suitable?
Technical achievement
After two years of resident engagement, a heat network designed to work for every home is now just weeks away from construction. The renewable energy centre, to be located beyond the conservation area of the village in an agricultural barn, will contain a series of air source and ground source heat pumps connected to 130 boreholes. In winter, the ground source heat pumps will supply up to 1.5MW and in summer, the system
LEGAL EXPERTS IN THE GROWTH REGION 24 Cambridge Architecture
