Westhall community pub considers building its own wind turbine

Villagers who bought a pub and transformed it into a thriving local hub are exploring ways of generating their own electricity – including installing their own wind turbine.

Residents in Westhall, near Halesworth, Suffolk, became some of the first in England to secure funding to buy their own pub after winning a £96,000 government grant in 2021.

The local community had been running The Racehorse for two years before officially taking it over, after coming together to rent it following a more than three-year closure.

The campaigners who fought to keep the pub alive are now looking to go one further by building a community solar farm or wind turbine to reduce electricity costs.

Kim Hoare, one of the residents who spearheaded the pub takeover, said it provided the area with an opportunity to obtain further ownership of its services.

"Westhall is a fantastic village - it's already got its own community pub and it feels like it could really get to grips with its own community energy project," she said.

"We all know green energy is the direction of travel, and it's so much better to have ownership and control of it rather than have it imposed on you."

The plan is part of an initiative by the Halesworth Area Sustainability Hub, which strives to reduce the carbon footprint of communities and achieve self-sufficiency.

In addition to reducing electricity bills, it is hoped the project could make the village more accessible and less isolated.

Due to having no access to mains gas, more than half of households are currently reliant on oil or LPG to heat their homes.

Prescription medicines, meanwhile, have to be delivered to the pub for collection because the nearest pharmacy is four and a half miles away.

Buses from Westhall to Halesworth also only run once a day and residents without cars find it difficult to access basic services.

"Maybe an EV car you could borrow, or EV charging points, who knows? There are a whole range of possibilities for the community to explore," added Hoare.

The proposal will be discussed by villagers, parish councillors and landowners at a workshop meeting on 26 September before a study determines if it is feasible.

If doable, members of the community may be asked to help raise money in order to fund the project alongside a government grant - in the same way the pub was bought.

On Thursday, Downing Street's Great British Energy released £30m of a £1bn windfall of funding to support more than 1,000 community-led clean energy projects across the UK.

In Westhall, that could come in the form of a wind turbine, despite the previous construction of five turbines proving controversial.

"What would be more exciting would be an energy project owned by the community itself which could be wind turbines or solar panels," added Hoare.

"They'd get a discount and a say over what the people of Westhall wanted, where they wanted it and what benefits they would like to see from it."

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