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.
The iconic Billingham Forum in Stockton, is home to a range of facilities including an ice rink, swimming pool and theatre, is one of the council’s biggest consumers of energy.
The authority worked with our Public Estate Decarbonisation Team programme to identify priority sites across its estate and developed a Building Decarbonisation Strategy to support future investment decisions.
As part of this work, a fully funded decarbonisation report was completed for Billingham Forum. The assessment identified opportunities to reduce emissions and highlighted additional roof space suitable for solar panel installations – allowing more resources to be reinvested into facilities and services for local communities.
The Hub also supported Redcar and Cleveland Council with an energy efficiency project on the Civic Centre building aimed at cutting energy costs and carbon emissions. After being supported by the Hub to develop a bid to the GBE Mayoral Renewable Fund the council was able to install solar PV (and batteries in most cases) at nine council buildings ranging from a library, through to a visitors centre at Guisborough Forest Walkway with combined energy generation of 495,653 kWh. This even included the region’s largest solar PV array!
The NEYPED programme was able to support closely by working with the authority’s property services department to upgrade structure systems and heating controls, improving efficiency and delivering substantial energy and financial savings.
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”
We have also produced a building decarbonisation resource pack for schools which you can download below
Decarbonisation Resources for Schools
The national programme of support for public estate decarbonisation ended in September 2026. As our stakeholders have told us they value our support in this area, the North East and Yorkshire Net Zero Hub has decided to continue to offer support for public bodies looking to cut the energy costs of their own estates, funded by our own resources. This does mean that going forward we will have to prioritise supporting local authorities in terms of the direct support we offer.
The programme publishes a regular newsletter containing all the latest policy and funding announcements and best practice guides. Back issues can be found below.
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.
