Council proposes £650k support package to help businesses reduce their energy costs
A council is planning to allocate more than £600,000 towards helping local businesses to reduce their energy consumption and drive down costs.
Members of East Lindsey District Council’s executive board heard that the authority is proposing to allocate £650,000 from the East Lindsey Investment Fund (ILIF) towards helping businesses to reduce their energy usage and the amount that they’re having to spend on energy.
The district council allocated £1.5 million towards a business support strand of the ELIF.
While the majority of the money has already been allocated, the remaining £650,000 has been proposed to be put towards a business support programme to tackle energy consumption.
The proposed programme is expected to provide support and guidance to businesses on how they can ‘make smarter and more informed energy management decisions.’
At a meeting on Thursday (February 19), portfolio holder for the coastal economy, Coun Steve Kirk (Conservative) explained that the proposed scheme will aim to reduce the cost of energy for local businesses.
He said: “Certainly, one of the hardest hitting areas currently that businesses are facing – small and large – is the ever increasing cost of energy.
“Whilst it may be good that successive governments have put a cap on the domestic consumer, business tariffs continue to run amok.
“Now unfortunately, we are in an area where electricity is the main energy source for most of our businesses, particularly if you look on the coast.
“If there was no electricity on the coast, most of our larger businesses simply could not operate.”
Coun Kirk went on to say the proposed programme will aim to help businesses to use more renewable energy sources.
He added: “It’s tapping into the renewable sector – the huge advances that there have been recently.
“But more importantly, the total lack of knowledge our business leaders have. That’s through ignorance, it’s simply a fact that it has become so specialist that if it is not the area in which you work, you don’t fully understand what is available.
“If we can help them use renewable energy to drive down costs leading to them becoming more profitable, leading them to employ more people and to expand then I think this is something that this council should be proud of.”
Coun Adam Grist (Conservative) said the proposal aims to drive down energy costs for businesses across the district.
The portfolio holder for market towns added: “Energy is still very acute out there in the business community.
“It’s not going away, it’s not going to go away and we think that most businesses are just having to find this money, month in month out and probably haven’t got the support that they need.
“They’re just having to take it on the chin and find a way of absorbing this extra cost, so we think there is something here where we can help, assist and make a difference.”
The district council is currently developing an action plan for the proposed business support programme. The scheme is expected to be formally launched in April this year.