How best to look after our heritage when funds are short and there is a pressing need to reduce carbon emissions?

This is a dilemma confronting all local councils across the country, but it is particularly difficult to solve here because we have so much heritage to look after – in both the built and the natural environment. At the same time, our agriculture, our coasts and low-lying settlements are in the front line of climate change. 

Last week’s Journal highlighted opposition to the massive solar park being proposed in the Holsworthy area which will eat up many acres of green space. Witness also the now defunct XLinks project and, across the estuary, the long-running controversy over the White Cross project. People feel threatened by the scale of these projects, yet it is the opportunity to generate green power at scale that solves a problem for governments and is attractive to investors – hence the reason why large-scale developments are taken out of the hands of local councils to decide. 

However, local councils do have a role in weighing up the pros and cons of smaller proposals, and one of these has come the fore in Bideford in relation to one of our most iconic buildings – the Town Hall and old library. Given that the library has now relocated to the Quay and there is a strong desire for the building to be maintained as a community asset, some months ago the Plans Committee agreed a change of use for the library to become a gym, managed by Active Torridge. 

Now councillors must vote on the detailed plans for remodelling the building. The need to repair its complex roof system, which includes towers, turrets and a parapet, offers the opportunity to instal some solar panels on the least obtrusive south facing roofs, while a new heating system powered by air source heat pumps would cut both emissions and fuel bills for years to come. 

This is the crux of the dilemma. The solar panels are considered unsightly, and it is feared that the presence of heat pumps will create a negative impact on the unique heritage space around St Mary’s Church to the back of the building. 

Peter Christie, the much-loved former contributor of this column, was both a Green campaigner and a councillor who dedicated his life to preserving Bideford’s heritage. Which priority would he have favoured, I wonder, if the decision had been his?