County’s energy shambles

Solar Power

    Hampshire Conservatives have once again been caught up in an embarrassing mess, after  it emerged that they had forfeited £1.4 million in taxpayers’ money, paying for the County’s excessive energy emissions.

The County Council must pay a levy for every tonne of carbon emissions as a result of electricity and gas use, but residents were shocked to find that very little progress has been made to reduce emissions, with the County’s energy plan in tatters.

Local campaigners have accused the County of ‘dithering’ and failing to get on with the job, which has now led to the £1.4 million bill. Plans for solar panels on buildings were ditched last year, meaning the County missed out on  maximum savings in energy bills that could have been used to keep Council tax down and protect local services.

Hampshire County is already ranked in the bottom half of the national energy efficiency league table, and it seems it hasn’t learnt it’s lesson after it was announced Conservative Council bosses were considering a blanket ban on windfarms, a move described as ‘bonkers’ by local campaigners. Residents fear this backwards thinking will mean another massive tax bill next year.

Local people are fed up of this needless waste of their money by the Conservative-run Council. If the County had got on with the job, it could have made our buildings more energy efficient and generated green electricity to save taxpayers money.It’s now paying the price, paying taxes for burning up excess carbon. Worse, it’s local residents who are once again being punished for Conservative County Chiefs’ dithering.

 

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