Is Flintshire Council wasting taxpayer money on excessive heating? Connah’s Quay councillor raises concerns

A Flintshire councillor has urged the authority to look into the energy used heating its own buildings.

At a meeting of Flintshire Council’s climate change committee, Connah’s Quay Wepre Cllr Roz Mansell (Ind) shared concerns about the way the temperature is controlled at County Hall, its Ewloe offices and council flats.

During a discussion about the development of a Flintshire county energy plan, Cllr Mansell said: “Would this apply to big buildings, Flintshire Council offices?

“I’ve noticed that every time I go to a meeting or if I have to go to Ewloe, Mold, the building is really hot, people are having to open windows.

“We’ve tried to turn a thermostat down but you can’t do it and it is constantly hot all the time.

“In the summer I’ve been in an office where it’s been 34 (degrees) heat in the room and we’re putting on air conditioning to try and cool the room down.

[Connah’s Quay Wepre Cllr Roz Mansell. Source – Flintshire Council]

“I thought it might save Flintshire lots of money because I’ve reason to believe it’s costing on average over £1,000 a week to heat the buildings and nobody’s using them.

“Would it be a saving if we could try and find a way of turning the heating down or off during the summer because those buildings have got all those windows, they’re automatically getting heated and we go in there opening all the windows and letting the heat out.”

The council’s climate change and carbon reduction programme manager Alex Ellis said the issue could be looked into, backed by chief officer for planning Andrew Farrow.

Mr Farrow said: “They’re good points but I can assure you at the moment the heating is off at County Hall.

“Part of the difficulty is controlling temperatures in different areas at County Hall. Those meeting rooms running down where the Alyn & Deeside meeting room is etc do all have air-con as well.

“The problem is if people haven’t put the air-con on in the morning the room heats up because it’s south-facing, people then go in, open the windows and put the air-con on.

“I don’t think it’s worth retro-fitting anything on the front part of County Hall but I can assure you the heating has been off for a couple of months. The heating is off at Ewloe as well. We’ve got more options in terms of switching on heat on and off in particular zones in Ewloe but we will get back to you on that in terms of what we can do.”