Frome Town Council and the Cheese and Grain are working together to create the west country’s first carbon neutral live music venue.
Solar panels installed in 2013 by the town council, who hold the lease for the building, have already hugely reduced the Cheese and Grain’s carbon footprint, with an estimated saving of £250,000 on energy bills and £90,000 recovered by FTC from selling excess electricity back to the grid. Now the venue wants to go even further and create the West Country’s first carbon neutral live music venue.
Steve Macarthur, Director of the Cheese and Grain, said: “It’s a daunting ambition, with some technical challenges, but the benefits are huge, and it will also help to offset the tens of thousands of car journeys the venue generates each year.
“The first steps include applying for planning permission to generate more off-grid electricity on site and installing battery storage. If we achieve our aims, we’ll be able to stop using gas heating altogether – and the venue will be drawing little or no electricity from the grid. In addition, we want to see more EV chargers on site, more and better recycling and less waste. Investment is the key to reducing the Cheese and Grain’s carbon footprint and ensuring its financial and environmental sustainability and we’ll be working with Frome Energy Company FreCo and Green and Healthy Frome, along with Frome Town Council, to secure the funding needed to achieve our ambitions.”
Cllr Fiona Barrows, Chair of FTC, said “One of the things that makes Frome such a great place to live and helps us ‘punch above our weight’ as a small town is having an amazing live music venue on our doorstep. In addition to a packed calendar of gigs and events, the Cheese and Grain provides professional-standard facilities for recording and editing music, used by big names and young, local talent and provides meeting and hotdesking spaces. It’s a gem of a venue and a true creative hub for the town. The Cheese and Grain’s plans also raise the bar for other music venues: entertainment shouldn’t – and doesn’t have to be -at the expense of the planet. We’re happy to support the Cheese and Grain in this venture.”
