Shield Road Primary School in Filton is set to receive a £20k cash injection from Filton Town Council to improve its outdoor play facilities. Image: Google Maps
By Lucy Frost
Filton Town councillors have unanimously agreed to award Shield Road Primary School a one-off payment of £20,000 to support a wider play equipment improvement project.
The grant, proposed by Cllr Adam Monk, would significantly enhance outdoor play provision and promote physical activity, imaginative play and social development.
Cllr Monk said neighbouring schools, Charborough Road and Filton Hill Primary School, have recently benefitted from council support and argued that Shield Road should receive similar investment.
At the council meeting, deputy headteacher Hannah Hughes said: “Something like this will really help us.
“[The project is] something our children want desperately and it’s something that our children deserve.”
Members noted that approximately 38 per cent of pupils receive free school meals and that the school had actively explored sponsorship opportunities and alternative funding streams to support the project, which is costing almost £36k.
During the discussion, Ms Hughes also highlighted wider challenges facing the school, including falling pupil numbers. She noted that the school’s reception class has just 13 pupils this academic year.
The investment comes as the school is also benefitting from wider improvements to the site.
Shield Road Primary is amongst a number of schools and council-owned buildings across the county to receive rooftop solar panels through a council-backed renewable energy programme, helping to reduce energy costs.
This substantial investment has more than doubled the council’s rooftop solar generation capacity, significantly increasing renewable energy production across the property portfolio and improving the resilience and sustainability of the council’s estate.
Councillor Louise Harris, cabinet member for the climate and nature emergency at South Gloucestershire Council, said: “When we started our council term, one of the top priorities was to look after our environment. Putting solar panels on the council buildings and schools was a real way we could make a difference. We’re really pleased to see solar installed across the council’s buildings.
“It is estimated that each school or public building that’s had solar installed as part of this programme will save around a third of its energy costs. It’s a win for the environment and keeps costs down.”
Helen Godwin, Mayor of the West of England, said: “Saving money through green energy today can help protect tomorrow, and thanks to more new funding, we will be able to help even more communities. It’s great to see South Gloucestershire Council matching the investment provided by the Mayoral Renewables Fund, secured from Great British Energy.”
Council chiefs have quietly waved the white flag on the ambition to make South Gloucestershire carbon neutral by 2030.
A new four-year nature and climate draft strategy has been approved, replacing the one agreed in 2020, and will instead focus on improving lives and health for residents and wildlife, with few specific targets.
A report to South Gloucestershire Council health and wellbeing board said both the council and the district as a whole were reducing harmful emissions but that the rate was not fast enough to reach net zero by the end of the decade.
It said that while renewable energy was growing, this was also not at the levels needed to achieve the original goal.
The new draft strategy has 10 aims by 2030 which still include a carbon neutral council, despite a pessimistic update in the report, while net zero for South Gloucestershire as a whole is replaced with the vague “Area wide emissions reductions”.
The report said: “In July 2019, South Gloucestershire Council declared a climate emergency pledging to enable South Gloucestershire to become carbon neutral
by 2030. We wrote the original public facing strategy in 2020 and the agenda has moved on considerably since then. The updated strategy is about being clear about where we will focus our efforts between now and 2030.”