Highland Council staff urged to wear jumpers to cut power bill
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HIGHLAND Council staff will be told to consider wearing jumpers to the work this winter to tackle the local authority’s soaring energy bills.
A ban on charging personal mobile phones and tablets at work could also be brought in after new figures revealed electricity and gas costs went up by nearly £2 million.
The council was forced to fork out nearly £9 million to heat and light its buildings in the last financial year and bosses are under pressure to drive energy consumption down.
At the same time, the amount of waste going to landfill from council buildings has also increased.
The authority’s climate change officer Gemma Cassells is calling for tougher policies and a "behavioural change".
She said previous years had seen a much "higher focus" on energy saving measures.
But non-aligned Cromarty Firth councillor Carolyn Wilson said the problems were caused by "poor housekeeping" on the council’s part.
And Inverness Central Scottish National Party councillor Richard Laird said it was "patronising" to ask council staff and school pupils to don jumpers to stay warm while at work.
"I don’t think the council should be saying something like that to its staff," he said.
"The least energy efficient buildings in the council’s top 10 list are all schools, bar one. Do we really want our children sitting in cold classrooms so we can save money on heating? I don’t think so."
The rising gas and electricity costs were presented in an annual progress report to councillors on the resources committee this week.
Gemma Cassells, co-author, believes a wetter than usual winter was partly to blame for the rise in energy bills in 2014-15.
But she says staff are clearly not doing enough because it is widely known an "engaged workforce" can reduce energy consumption by 10 per cent.
She says campaigns by the council to reduce energy usage were sporadic last year and urgent remedial action is needed to cut the costs.
Staff being urged to wear jumpers, switch off computers, turn down thermostats, and stop bringing in desk lights or heaters or charging their tablets and phones are among the recommendations made in her report.
The paper also points out that in previous years "a higher focus" was placed upon the ten council sites where energy consumption is highest, and it says the council needs to turn its full attention to the problem.
Alness Academy tops the list of the council’s top 10 highest energy consuming buildings, followed in close second by Wick Academy.
The council’s headquarters at Glenurquhart Road in Inverness take the third slot followed in turn by Nairn Academy, Inverness Royal Academy, Tain Royal Academy, Inverness High School, Charleston Academy, Grantown Grammar School and Culloden Academy.
Cllr Wilson said she saw this problem coming a long time ago.
"There’s been a huge amount of high-profile emphasis put into cycle tracks on which the previous administration spent £800,000 but actually the good housekeeping that should’ve been done to make council buildings more energy-efficient has been ignored," she said.
