£3.5m to be spent replacing old boilers at Tipton leisure centers

More than £3.5 million is to be spent replacing old gas boilers with greener heat pumps at two Tipton leisure centres. Sandwell Council plans to take up the offer of more than £3 million in Government funding to replace the aging gas boilers at Tipton Sports Academy and Tipton Leisure Centre.

The move would save 470 tonnes of CO2 and around £65,000 a year, according to Sandwell Council. Salix, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero funding body, will provide most of the money, with Sandwell Council already agreeing to spend £500,000 towards the cost of installing the new heat pumps.

Heat pumps are powered by electricity and work by taking ‘low grade’ heat from the air outside a building and converting it into useful heat at higher temperatures, which is then used to heat spaces and water. The council said it would borrow the £449,280 it agreed to match. Estimated annual savings will be used to fund loan repayments.

Read more: Empty West Bromwich pub to be turned into flats

Read more: Flats plan above city center shops gets approval after sunlight flare-up

Sandwell Council’s cabinet meets on June 19 to stamp out Salix’s offer to pay for the majority of the project. Councilors will also be asked to approve plans to appoint renewable energy specialists Leisure Energy to design and carry out the works.

The council’s bid for government funding has already been accepted – and the £500,000 requested from Sandwell taxpayers has already been included in the authority’s “medium term” financial plans. The work must be completed by March 2026, according to Salix’s deadline.

Read more: Changes made in bid to turn empty Oldbury pub into new shop

Read more: Inspectors side with council over ‘wrongdoing’ at proposed Oldbury children’s home

Read more: 125 flats planned for former Tentec site in West Bromwich after ‘crowded’ criticism

Cabinet documents, which have now been released ahead of the meeting, said “tight” deadlines and council elections in May meant it was impossible to seek councilors’ approval before the application was made in November. Sandwell Council said the two sites in Tipton were chosen following a review of the borough’s leisure centres. The energy audit said the work was “most necessary” due to the age of two of the building’s heating systems.

The Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) provides money to help reduce carbon emissions from public buildings. The main aim of the scheme is to upgrade fossil-based heating systems for low-carbon alternatives – particularly technologies such as heat pumps, which have a higher upfront cost than equivalent gas boilers.

Sandwell Council declared a climate emergency in 2020 and pledged to become carbon neutral by 2030. The borough has already received more than £1.6 million in government PSDS money – including funding for solar panels, new heating systems for schools and heat pumps at Sandwell Council House.