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Green Loan set to save Barking and Dagenham £400k per year

The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham is hoping to save £400k per year after a green loan has helped to kick start its streetlight refurbishment programme.

Thanks to a £6.8m loan from UK Green Investment plc, which has been specifically designed to support public sector energy efficiency projects, Barking and Dagenham London Borough Council will now begin replacing 14,790 traditional streetlights with new LED alternatives.

The council estimates that the new energy-saving bulbs will half annual streetlight energy consumption, equating to a saving of around £400k per year at current energy prices.

It also means the borough has become the first in London to receive a green loan from UK Green Investment, following similar deals with Glasgow City Council, Southend-on-Sea Borough Council, Stirling Council and Kent County Council.

Helping put the deal together was Edinburgh-based law firm, Shepherd and Wedderburn, which advised the green investment bank in each of the six loan deals through its Clean Energy team.

Clare Foster, who is Head of Clean Energy at the firm, commented: “This is the fifth such deal to have been completed in less than two years and comes hot on the heels of Kent County Council’s Green Loan signing three months ago — the biggest non-Private Finance Initiative (PFI) streetlighting project in the UK.

“Combined, these deals demonstrate that the ‘spend to save’ model, a key component of the loan is rapidly gaining recognition throughout the UK. We are delighted to see another successful deployment of the Green Loan.”