As owner of the local bus company – Warrington’s Own Buses – we play an important role in improving bus services across Warrington.

In 2021, we were successful in securing £20 million Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) funding to support the replacement of 105 diesel buses with new electric ones. The first few electric buses are now in service, with the remainder expected to arrive throughout the year.

The outcome of this means that zero emission vehicles will account for 85% of all bus mileage in the borough – a huge step towards reducing local emissions from transport.

In tandem with this scheme, we commissioned the build of a new electric bus depot to house the new fleet, which opened in March 2023.

The Incrementum Housing Development Company – set up and owned by the council – aims to deliver hundreds of low carbon homes across the borough. Our first two schemes were completed in 2022, delivering 161 homes to rent in Birchwood and Great Sankey.

Both developments utilise low carbon technology such as solar panels and ground source heat pumps, and are built to high thermal efficiency standards to help minimise carbon emissions.

Find out more by visiting Incrementum's website.

Since 2015 we have invested in a number of solar power schemes across Warrington, ranging from commercial buildings to social housing, as well as a number of installations on our own buildings.

The biggest of these installations was at the Omega development in west Warrington, where we installed 3,000 solar panels on the Plastic Omnium building, covering an area equivalent to the size of a Premier League football pitch. This array generates 735,000kWh of electricity per year and saves around 208 tonnes of CO₂ annually.

We also worked with local housing association, Torus, to install solar arrays on 1,600 houses. These installations continue to provide benefits to tenants.

More recently, we have worked in partnership with GRIDSERVE to build three large-scale solar farms near York, Hull and Cirencester. These farms deliver clean electricity to the grid and generate revenue that enable us to deliver our essential services. The farms are equipped with innovative technology to maximise solar generation, such as double-sided panels.  They also utilise battery storage systems to help balance the grid during hours of peak demand.

In 2022/23, the three solar farms saved nearly 13,000 tonnes of CO₂, the equivalent of 38 million miles driven in a petrol or diesel car.

We also work with neighbouring Cheshire councils to promote an annual ‘Solar Together Cheshire & Warrington’ group buying opportunity, aimed at residents and businesses. In the first round of the scheme, 95 households in Warrington invested in solar panels, many of which included battery storage. These installations are estimated to lead to a reduction of 1,121 tonnes of CO2 over 25 years.

The Solar Together website  contains details of current or future rounds.

Many of our early carbon-saving projects focused on energy efficiency in buildings we own, including schools, leisure centres and libraries.

The largest scheme, however, was the rolling upgrade of our 27,000 streetlights to LED technology, which has saved us more than £300,000 and has significantly reduced our carbon footprint.

To help fund our third solar farm in Cirencester, we launched our first ever Community Municipal Investment bond, offering the public the opportunity to directly invest in our solar ventures. With contributions starting as little as £5, the public funded £1 million towards the costs of building the 23-megawatt solar farm.

While the majority of the revenues generated from the solar farms are returned back to the council to help fund our services, a proportion of the earnings are invested in local energy projects via Warrington Community Energy. This helps boost local sustainable energy initiatives and ensure the benefits of our investments elsewhere are realised back in Warrington.

The Car Club forms part of Warrington’s wider travel plan for the town centre, which is dedicated to promoting sustainable travel.

You can hire electric cars, based at Time Square multi-storey car park, for as little as an hour at a time.

We have been working to support residents, businesses and visitors to make the switch away from petrol and diesel-powered vehicles by increasing electric vehicle charging provision across the borough. We have delivered a number of projects to date, including:

• 56 chargers at our Time Square multi-storey car park – one of the most extensive collections of points in a single location in the country
• 12 chargers at Warrington West Train Station
• 4 chargers at The Base, which currently offer subsidised charging
• 6 chargers at the Forge Shopping Centre car park in Stockton Heath
• 30 on-street chargers across 6 residential locations, where the majority of residents do not have access to private off-street parking
• 78 chargers at Birchwood Business Park

We have also secured funding through the Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) Pilot to deliver up to 650 additional residential chargers across the borough, providing a mixture of on-street chargers and a number of rapid charging hubs. The roll out of these new chargers is anticipated to commence in late 2024.

You can find out more on the electric vehicles webpage. 

We want to build a low carbon culture across our organisation. We have invested in improving skills to deliver action on climate change among our workforce through accredited Carbon Literacy training.

We launched our own bespoke accredited course in early 2023 and have since delivered training to a significant number of council officers and elected members. We have made progress on our target to become a Carbon Literate Organisation, having earned ‘Bronze’ accreditation status in 2022. We are now well on our way to achieving ‘Silver’ status, which involves training more than 15% of the workforce.

We want Warrington to be a thriving, attractive, accessible, and well-connected place with popular, high-quality walking, cycling, and public transport networks, supporting our net zero future. This vision is detailed in our Local Transport Plan.

Our Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) outlines our plans to increase active and sustainable travel  and deliver the necessary infrastructure improvements to allow people to travel safely and sustainably. We have delivered a range of projects supporting these aims, and have a number of ongoing active travel schemes, including:

• Local accessibility improvements for pedestrians and mobility impaired
• Trial of light segregation cycle lanes in town centre
• Improvement of strategic links such as sections of the Trans Pennine Trail and Omega to Burtonwood Cycle route
• Adult and child cycle training
• Development of the first CYCLOPS (Cycle Optimised Protected Signals) junction in central Warrington
• Establishing a community cycle hub in the town centre
• Re-design of key streets to make them safer and less car-orientated

Decarbonising heat is crucial to achieving the council’s net zero ambitions. Walton Hall and Gardens is amongst the top ten carbon emitters in the council’s estate, so replacing the end-of-life gas heating system for the hall with a ground source heat pump is an important step towards cutting the council’s greenhouse gas pollution.

The project took place over summer 2024 and involved drilling 20 boreholes at a depth of 170 metres to capture renewable heat energy from the ground. This energy is compressed into a higher temperature using a heat pump so that it can heat Walton Hall during cooler weather. Works took place inside the Hall itself to replace the radiators and pipework connecting to the plant room.

This low-carbon heating technology should result in an estimated annual carbon saving of 43,000 kgCO2e, compared to gas heating.

The project benefited from grant support under the government’s Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme.