A TOWN Hall heat pump project is ‘no longer taking place’ because of the ‘ridiculously short timescales’ given for projects like it.

A capital programme monitoring report for quarter three of 2023-24 came before the council’s cabinet at its meeting on Monday.

It provided the current position and progress of the 2023-24 capital investment programme and its financing, as at December 31 2023.

The report stated that the construction phase of the Walton Hall ground source heat pump project started on site on January 2 and is ‘progressing to schedule’.

But it said that the Town Hall ground source heat pump project is ‘no longer taking place’.

“Due to the technical challenges of the Town Hall being a grade 1 listed building the project could not be completed by the one year grant deadline of 31 March 2024,” said the report.

“Progress was made during the last year to enable the council to re-apply for grant funding in 2024-25 with a greater chance of delivering the programme within a one year deadline.”

Deputy council leader Cllr Janet Henshaw said ‘it’s a great pity that we’ve had to pull away from this’.

“The reason we’ve had to pull away, once again, is because of the ridiculously short timescales that we’re given for projects like these,” she added.

“There’s no long-term funding at all and so everybody has to compete for grant money, and when we compete and when we get the grants, we then are landed with such a short timescale for such a complicated piece of work that it becomes almost untenable.

“What I am glad about though is that, even though that’s a great shame, the money that we would have match-funded on that is being moved to another decarbonisation project at Orford Jubilee Hub, and that’s a really good thing that will help the environment and help the hub with cheaper bills too.”

The cabinet noted the monitoring report, approved amendments to the 2023-24 capital programme, and approved the Orford Jubilee Hub decarbonisation project and ‘match funding element’.