Bishop opens top class environmental school building
20/05/2010
The Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham was the guest of honour at the recent opening of one of the UK's most eco-friendly school buildings.
The Rt Rev Paul Butler was at the National School in Hucknall to officially open The Green Building, a modular classroom structure that features state-of-the-art solar and insulation products.
The Bishop was joined by council officials, representatives from the local community, pupils, people involved in the construction of the building and Blue Planet Buildings, who developed the solar and insulation products.
Each of the 112 solar panels that line the roof of the building produce on average 1.2 kilowatts of electricity a day.
The solar panels are managed in the plant room housed within the building, which captures data on energy usage and light conditions and includes a meter displaying electricity efficiency.
National School head teacher Dr. John Edwards commented: "The purpose of a school first and foremost is of course to educate, and in order to deliver the high quality learning that we aspire to, we have to allocate our budget wisely.
"Going green is often seen by schools and similar organisations as a luxury that they can't afford." This project gave us the opportunity to marry our need for cost-effective, flexible teaching space with our environmental values.
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