The collaboration of Suffolk County Council and the Solar Together Suffolk scheme has been met with concerns by the Suffolk Coastal Green Party on its effectiveness in achieving carbon neutrality across Felixstowe, and Suffolk, by 2030.

Felixstowe Nub News previously reported on the County Council's Solar Together Suffolk scheme. Full story here.

Julian Cusack, chair of Suffolk Coastal Green Party, said: "The Solar Together scheme is a worthy group buying scheme for residential solar panels and battery storage. It has been helpful in building skills and capacity in the private sector.

"But it is not linked to any funding support for lower income homeowners and is therefore unlikely to contribute with sufficient urgency towards the 2030 carbon neutrality goal.

"The Greens on Suffolk County Council have proposed that the Council establish an insulation equivalent for Solar Together Suffolk for group purchases of insulation but this has not been taken up."

The average cost of solar panels for the average UK household is £5940, according to the latest government data.

Those occupying social housing are also unlikely to be able to take part in the scheme. On their website, Solar Together said: "You have to be the owner of the roof on which you want to install a solar PV system, or have the explicit approval of the owner, in order to participate."

According to the most recent census data (2011), the Safer Neighbourhood Team reported that more than a quarter of Felixstowe tenants lived in social housing.

This was higher than the national proportion of social housing in the same year which was 17.5%, reported by the Statista Research Department.

While more recent data for the Felixstowe area is unavailable due to the delay in census data release, the proportion of households occupied by social renters has decreased slightly nationally by 0.8% from 2011 to 16.7% in 2020.

There has also been criticism of the contents of the Suffolk Climate Emergency Plan and the unsuitability of it in advancing the goal of carbon neutrality by 2030.

Mr Cusack said: "We obtained a draft of the Plan under an FOI request and can only describe its contents as meagre. For example, there is no mention of decarbonising bus transport or heating in social housing. We would also expect in a rural County like Suffolk to see much more focus on land use and food.

"Overall we sense a reluctance on part of the Conservative administration of the County Council to respond with any urgency to the call to action implied by the 2030 target."

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