Improving Public Buildings

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Our North East and Yorkshire Public Estate Decarbonisation programme (NEYPED) works directly with regional authorities, schools, the NHS and blue light services to help them cut the energy costs and carbon emissions of their own buildings.

The programme builds on previous delivery which saw the Hub facilitate the development of heat decarbonisation plans at over 70 public buildings. This includes supporting the decarbonisation Todmorden Leisure Centre – one of Calderdale’s most energy intensive buildings – which single-handedly reduced the authority’s overall carbon emissions by 6%.

Since beginning in early 2025 the programme has worked with almost half of our local authorities to develop estate energy reduction strategies, upskill staff and identify sources of investment.

This includes Kirklees Council, who said:

“This collaboration has helped our team focus its resources so that Kirklees Council will hopefully have a meaningful strategy which we can use to prioritise our actions going forward”

NEYPED provides free advice and support to the public sector on estate decarbonisation, including:

Supporting the development and delivery of estate decarbonisation strategies, programmes and pipelines
Providing business case and support for delivery of decarbonisation projects and programmes
Reducing energy use and carbon emissions through building management and energy reporting
Introducing low carbon heat technologies such as heat pumps to replace fossil fuel boilers
Generation of renewable power from solar panels
High level solar assessment for priority buildings and reviewing Heat Decarbonisation Plans
Collaborative knowledge sharing workshops

The public sector organisation’s the team work on include:

Local authorities
NHS trusts
Multi-academy trusts and schools
Emergency services

NEYPED also partners with the NHS Green Team and Let’s Go Zero for Schools.

The programme publishes a regular newsletter containing all the latest policy and funding announcements and best practice guides. Back issues can be found below.

Public Estate Decarbonisation Update – November 2025

Upcoming NEYPED workshops are listed below

Managing a £52m domestic energy efficiency Green Homes Grant Local Authority Delivery programme for the region. This will allow local authorities to bid for funding to improve energy efficiency of low-income households in their area.
Delivering a Social Housing Decarbonisation Pilot project. We’re investigating ways in which housing associations could best be supported to access new government funding that will model the potential improvements required to improve EPC ratings across their properties.
Delivering Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme funding, a central government grant designed to assist local government bodies in financing decarbonisation and energy efficiency measures in public sector buildings.
Investigating new projects which would require limited amounts of development funding, particularly those which could be replicated across our region.

There has never been a more important time to work in energy efficiency. The government is investing heavily in Net Zero and the ‘Green Recovery’. Councils, big business, SMEs, start-ups, universities, colleges, housing providers, transport providers, everyone – we all have a part to play.

The project included 704 optimised solar PV panels improving efficiency across its estate and supporting the transition to a low carbon future

Please see below recordings of recent workshops

May 2026: This webinar explains the role of Energy Management Systems in reducing energy costs in public buildings.

April 2026: This webinar shares experience in implementing and optimising Building Management Systems (BMS), and exploring how BMS and Energy Management Systems can work together to support Net Zero targets.