Council buildings' energy use "grossly inefficient", new figures reveal

8.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 3rd Apr 2009

LibDem parliamentary candidate Mark Blackburn outside the council's most wasteful building. Despite being after working hours, many lights were still on.

Westminster council's buildings are wasting lots of energy, according to environmental information released under the Freedom of Information Act. The worst building uses six times as much energy as it should.

Under new rules brought in last October, all public buildings over a certain size have to display signs showing how energy efficient they are. Every building is graded from 'A' to 'G'. An 'A' grade means the building is very efficient and uses 25% or less energy than a building of the same type. At the opposite end, a 'G' grade is given to the most wasteful buildings, with energy use more than 50% higher than the average.

Over a quarter of the 49 council buildings that have been assessed received the bottom grade, 'G'. In fact, more council buildings scored a 'G' than any other grade. Not a single one of the 49 received the top grade, an 'A'.

The rules brought in last October also require the release of the exact percentage by which a building is more or less efficient than the average. By far the best performer was St Gabriel's School, which used less than half the energy for a building its size.

The worst two however were Westminster City Hall, which consumed almost four times as much energy as it should, and the council building on Lisson Grove, which used six times as much energy.

Commenting on the findings, Mark Blackburn, the LibDem parliamentary candidate for the new Westminster North constituency, said, "These facts are a damning indictment of Conservative-run Westminster council's green credentials. Not a single building won the most energy-efficient grade, whilst more than a quarter got the bottom grade.

"A Liberal Democrat-run Westminster would act to make council buildings more energy efficient. That would be good news not just for the environment, but for taxpayers too because at the moment they are paying more than they need to power these grossly inefficient buildings. The Conservatives need to get a grip."

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg MP has announced that his party would not have spent £12.5bn on the temporary VAT cut brought in by the Government, but would instead have used part of that money to insulate school buildings to make them more energy efficient. 36 of the 49 Westminster council buildings that were assessed are schools, and these would have been better off under LibDem plans.