Low Carbon Infrastructure Fund

The HCA’s Low Carbon Infrastructure Fund (LCIF) was launched in 2009 as part of the Government's Housing Stimulus Package. The initiative was a partnership between the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the HCA.

Its purpose was to support the development of district heating (DH) infrastructure as part of the delivery of new homes and the refurbishment of existing housing stock.

The funding was focused on housing growth areas in England and bids were sought from Local Authorities. The fund had £26m to administer and allocated £21m to an initial tranche of 13 projects. An additional £5m from DECC from November 2009 enabled the support of an additional three projects which are still in the pipeline and are not the subject of our lessons learned report.

The projects included in the report are:-

• Cranbrook New Community, East Devon County Council
• Greenwich Peninsula, London Borough of Greenwich
• Cranston Estate, London Borough of Hackney
• Manton and Reynolds Towers, Birmingham City Council
• Milton Keynes, Milton Keynes Council
• Riverside Dene, Newcastle City Council
• The Hub and Southside, Nottingham City Council
• Wood End, Henley Green and Manor Farm (WHEM), Coventry City Council
• Mayflower Gantry, Southampton City Council
• Woolston Riverside, Southampton City Council
• Yarn Street, Aire Valley, Leeds City Council
• Cambridge and Crescent Towers, Birmingham City Council
• Hanham Hall, South Gloucestershire Council

All of these projects demonstrate how, in the right conditions, DH can achieve CO₂ savings in meeting the demands for space and water-heating in existing and new buildings. Details about the specific projects can be found in the case studies found in the report. 

The LCIF programme has allocated all of the funding and is closed to further applications. However the HCA will continue to support projects of this nature through its land and regeneration work, particularly in respect of affordable housing. Where developments are of a sufficient scale, the HCA will bring forward site-wide energy solutions that meet the Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH) criteria.