Introduction

LMEHA is developing a NetZero sustainability plan with three goals:

  1. Reduce LME’s Green House Gas (GHG) footprint to NetZero
  2. Reduce homeowner’s running costs
  3. Increase LME home values due to the positive image of a NetZero community and the reduced running costs

Our main focus for the plan is a community wide initiative that can achieve more at a better price than individual action. However, we will also be developing advice to help homeowners on actions they can take themselves. 

The plan is assessing community renewable energy generation including solar, wind, hydro and storage. NetZero home, building and pool heating including community heating, heat pumps, electric and hydrogen. EV charging infrastructure, estate services, land management, waste management and home improvements.

 

Plan

The plan has been created by the LMEHA NetZero sustainability sub-committee and is at an initial draft stage approved by the LMEHA committee and shared with homeowners, Habitat First Group (HFL) and HML (the estate management company). We are working collaboratively to develop a fully costed and researched plan that in its final form can be implemented once approved by all parties.

The draft plan is available in three formats:

    Plan Document – Detailed:

     

    Plan Presentation – Summary:

     

    Plan Presentation – 1.13 hour recording of the plan presentation and discussion with homeowners from March 2022:

    Sub-Committee

    The plan is being developed by a sub-committee of homeowners:

    • Andy Mortimer
    • David Willis
    • Hilary Collins
    • Jo Felstead
    • Jo Winson
    • Julie Arnold
    • Matthew Weiniger
    • Mike McKeow
    • Paul Hawkins
    • Ranjit Prasad
    • Tim Hopes

    They can be reached at sustainability@lmeha.com

    We would love to expland the committee, so please contact us if you’d like to join. The amount of time put in is very flexible. We’d particularly welcome anyone with industry or personal experience in sustainablity technologies and financing.

    Community Initiatives

    The concept of sustainablity community iniatives is quite well established. We are reaching out to a number of these to learn from and potentially collaborate with, including.

    If you know of others who would be worth talking to please let us know.

     

    Frequently Ask Questions (FAQs)

    How will this be funded? Will it cost homeowners money?

    Financing is an important stream of the plan, we are too early on to give definite answers. But based on what we have learnt from other community projects it’s clear that while the infrastructure investment will be significant, there are innovative financial models available and possibly some government grants that could help. For example, other community initiatives have run share schemes where investors can put money into the scheme and receive a multi-year payback and dividend like return on investment.

     

    Will this reduce running costs?

    Yes, it should reduce the running cost of individual homes and the estate chargers. Renewable energy and non-fossil fuel heating and transport have lower running costs and these continue to decline. Although some of these savings will be needed as part of the infrastructure investment.

     

    Will everyone be forced to join in?

    No, we don’t think a model that would require everyone to join will be realistic. Most of the large infrastructure initiatives such as sustainable power generation and heating would work with only a proportion of homeowners joining at the outset. Although there are likely to be minimum thresholds to make some of this viable.

    There may be some aspects of the plan that impact upon the service charge, for example maintaining EV chargers. However, our goal is to reduce running costs. Plus any large service charge changes are controlled by legislation that requires consultation.

     

    Will more EV chargers make parking worse?

    LMEHA are well aware of the parking issues and are working actively with LME and HML to both find additional parking space and improve the efficiency of parking management. We will consider the impact of EV charging on this.

     

    Will the plan require the cooperation of HFG/LME?

    Yes, absolutely. We are starting to engage with HFG and HML to work jointly on the plan. We know HFG are committed to becoming a NetZero business by 2030 and recently launched a website dedicated to the subject.