Council investment in green leisure centres paying off

Lewes District Council and Wave Leisure Trust (WLT) have been working together to generate greener and cheaper electricity for two of their local leisure centres.

The Downs Leisure Centre in Seaford and Lewes Leisure Centre have benefited from an investment of £170,000 by Lewes District Council to install solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. The PV cells convert the sunlight into electricity, which can be used to run appliances and lighting.

Since the installation of the panels in March 2012, the two centres have combined to generate more than £16,000 from Feed In Tariffs - the government's scheme for paying PV users for feeding power back into the grid.

In the six months since their installation the Downs Leisure Centre's panels have created 23,000kw of energy, with Lewes producing 49,000kw. In total this has contributed to a reduction of 66 tonnes in CO2 - the equivalent of taking 11 cars off the road for a year.

James Page, leader of Lewes District Council, said: "Using sustainable energy sources is a positive way forward and we are already seeing income generated from the feed-in-tariffs on the panels installed at Wave Leisure."