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Plans put in for green technology, skills and food centre

Plans put in for green technology, skills and food centre

Our plans to transform part of a retail park in Bolton into a centre of excellence for green technology, skills and more food support could start this summer following a planning application we’ve submitted to Bolton Council.

We’re delivering the Greenworks project in partnership with Bolton charity Urban Outreach. It’s at Trinity Retail Park, located off the A666 (St Peter’s Way) in Bolton.

We’re working to transform retail units and land we acquired, into a place where people can learn the latest skills and low carbon technologies used to retrofit homes and commercial properties. This will be important to make buildings use fewer fossil fuels, waste less energy, cheaper to run and help prevent fuel poverty.

Greenworks is an investment in our tenants, society, the economy and the environment. It’ll help us to reduce what people would otherwise pay for their energy bills and generate income that we can reinvest into our services for tenants and residents. It’ll also help to achieve a sustainable, net-zero carbon future and support people into jobs in the construction and energy sectors.

Our planning application outlines the initial work to fit classrooms, training areas, work benches and offices inside the main Greenworks learning unit. And also develop two floors of storage area for Urban Outreach’s food bank plus modern waiting, reception and office facilities for the charity.

The proposal includes a range of external improvements to the units too. These include a new featured entrance to the Greenworks building, plus a living and breathing wall made up of a variety of plants and vegetation.

Plans for a second phase also include exploring future sustainability options such as solar panels, wind turbines, rainwater harvesting and electric vehicle charging sites, plus building a modular training house on site to help people develop their trades in a real environment.

Additionally, Urban Outreach, who invested in the site last year to secure their food storage and distribution facility, plans to use the space for food growing, food recycling, composting food waste into energy, and hydroponics– to help reduce food poverty across the town.

We plan for the development to be a not-for-profit enterprise, for revenue to cover costs and to reinvest any surplus into employment and enterprise projects and green technology initiatives.

Noel Sharpe is our Deputy Group Chief Executive Officer and Chair of the Bolton Vision Partnership’s Economic Prosperity Group. Noel says: “Retrofitting houses is one of the major challenges we face if Bolton is to become carbon neutral.

“Green technologies such as heat pumps, solar panels and rainwater harvesting are all available in the market, however there is a large skills gap in the number of people and businesses locally who are able to fit, maintain and repair them.

“Greenworks will help us to make sure that people in Bolton are trained up to benefit from these technologies and the retrofitting, which is necessary, while our learning spaces will also help low carbon businesses to benefit from the facilities to grow and have a positive impact on the world.”

CGI images

First CGI image showing what Greenworks will look like.

Second CGI image showing what Greenworks will look like.

More information

If you’re interested in businesses opportunities with Greenworks, please go to www.greenworksproject.org

If you're a tenant or resident who'd like to know more about the importance of this project and the benefits and opportunities it'll create, please find a guide to Greenworks at www.boltonathome.org.uk/greenworks