Westway Sports & Fitness Centre has teamed up with North Kensington Community Energy (NKCE) as part of a £107,000 project to help combat climate change and reduce carbon footprint in the local area.

Westway Sports Centre had 138 kWp of solar panels installed on their roof earlier this year in a bid to offer a renewable energy source for the community. Each year, the panels will save over 28 tonnes of CO2 in the atmosphere and create a community fund of over £35,000.

The North Kensington Community Energy project is part of Repowering - a social enterprise which empowers communities to fund, install and manage their own clean, local energy. 

In order to finance the project, Repowering is today launching a community share offer to raise the funds through a community benefit society. Local residents, businesses, councils and other stakeholders can invest in the society by purchasing shares and becoming shareholders and members. Investors are offered an average 3% return, while decarbonising London and supporting local communities.

The NKCE community fund is created to support projects in the Kensington and Chelsea borough. Members of the group decide how the funds should be distributed, funding local solutions to help address local issues.

Andy Davison, Area Contract Manager at Westway Sports & Fitness Centre, said: “This was a fantastic opportunity for us to get involved with. Not only will this help to shape the future of our local community, but also plays a big part in combating climate change locally and is step closer towards us becoming more sustainable as an organisation.”

Dave Fuller, voluntary director at NKCE, said:”This is really exciting and shows how community groups can be at the heart of creating a fairer, zero carbon society. This is our second project and we are now saving 46 tonnes of CO2 across our NKCE projects every year, these carbon savings are powered by people coming together and taking positive action.”

Westway Trust Chair, Toby Laurent Belson, added: “Westway Trust wants to support projects that can address what is important to our community and address the issues of the 21st century. A project that makes clean energy that local people can use and invest in and even returns some of that money back to the community, fits that outlook. We are very happy to have worked in partnership with others to make this happen.”

To find out more about the project, visit: https://www.repowering.org.uk/north-kensington-community-energy/