The Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich then commissioned us to undertake Heat Decarbonisation Plan (HDP) reports across nine Church of England Voluntary Aided Primary Schools (CEVAP) in Suffolk. These reports were needed to support future funding applications and enable the Trust to understand the schools’ current condition and performance.

In line with our successful bid, we met with the client to understand their aspirations and scope of work, and through client engagement, we devised an example report to inform our programme and manage their expectations. Site visits were conducted outside operational hours to suit clients and avoid disruption. During the site visits, we inspected the buildings to understand the current fabric performance, the condition of the heating plant, and the efficiency of their current systems. This enabled us to review the viable methods that could be implemented to improve the thermal performance of the school. After completing the first report, we discussed with the client to explain the methodology and logic we had used to ensure we were working to their expectations and including site-specific details.

At St John’s CEVAP School in Ipswich, a fabric-first approach was taken to follow the core principles of achieving Net Zero. We initially reviewed historical drawings and the existing Display Energy Certificates (DEC) for each respective block to evaluate the school’s energy consumption, energy costs, and annual CO2 emissions for the site. The current gas-fired boiler, hot water storage cylinder, steel heat distribution pipework, and mechanical control panel were reported to be at the end of serviceable life and are due to be replaced. In addition to the main switch panel, the LV switchgear and lighting were deemed unsatisfactory for sustainability for continued use, as 95% of the lighting in the school was fluorescent.