It’s a long way from Washington, USA, to the small Northumberland community of Humshaugh near Hexham. Just like the rest of us, villagers there feel the heat from Donald Trump and his attempts to upend the world. But this is a community with a mission. And they’re not going to be thrown off course by Donald Trump, the Reform Party, climate change deniers, or anyone else. As the world rocks from each new pronouncement from the White House, in Humshaugh it’s a case of keep calm and carry on.
Humshaugh Net Zero plans to build a one-megawatt solar farm in a field near Lincoln Hill just outside the village. It would provide enough electricity to supply half the homes in the village.
The present plan is for any profits to go into a community fund for net-zero projects like home insulation, heat pumps or electric car chargers. Eventually, if future legislation allows, it could directly help reduce the community’s household energy bills.
£100,000 pledged
Planning permission for the scheme has already been obtained and now a community funding project is underway which closes at the end of May. So far, an astonishing £100,000 has been pledged from a village of just 350 households.
Bids have also been lodged with North East Mayor, Kim McGuinness, and the North East Combined Authority. Humshaugh Net Zero also hopes to tap into funding from the Government’s Great British Energy Bill currently making its way through Parliament. The ultimate target is to raise up to £1.2 million to complete the scheme.
“Everything is taking longer than we thought,” said Nick Haywood from Humshaugh Net Zero. “But we’re more than confident we can get this project completed. We have so much support, locally, regionally and nationally.”
Parliamentary support
That support includes the local Hexham Labour MP, Joe Morris, who recently mentioned Humshaugh in a speech about community energy in the House of Commons. Last week Morris invited representatives from Humshaugh and other groups to what he called a climate round table.
“It’s about making sure we can decentralise our power supply and our decision making,” said Morris.
“This is so local communities like Humshaugh with genuine community buy-in, can get the infrastructure in place so they can produce energy locally. We need to make sure we have a system which encourages community energy rather than stalls it, which I think has been the case for too long.”
Humshaugh Net Zero hopes the Government and energy regulators will make it easier for schemes like theirs to get through the local planning process. “We want to see net zero projects get placed on the top of the pile,” said Nick Hayward.
“We’d also like to see a fairer pricing arrangement for community energy schemes. This is often what puts off investors. At the moment the gap between what we’d be offered for our electricity and what suppliers are charging customers is too great.
“Yes, we understand that there are costs and that commercial companies want to make a profit, but it’s too much. We’d like to see the price offered to us doubled, and for longer contracts to be rolled out.”
The group also hopes to persuade local authorities to favour electricity from local suppliers. “We think that community energy projects are key to the country achieving net zero nationally,” said Nick. “More schemes have got to be encouraged and the whole process and funding has to become easier, and quicker.”
Tackling the sceptics
And what of those climate sceptics – do they get them locally? “Oh yes, we have climate deniers here like anywhere else. We try to combat them by giving out information via our websites, by holding public meetings and by keeping local people informed of what we’re doing and about the arguments in favour of net zero.”
“After all, we can all see the impact of climate change around us and across the world. Some people see the problems but then switch off, or look the other way. We want to change that.
“This project isn’t about big corporations making big profits. Our plans are based in the community, by people of the community, for the benefit of people IN the community.”
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