Sharing the Warmth

How communities like yours could benefit from district heating systems.

Just imagine: houses all over England could soon be kept toasty warm in our cold, wet winters by renewable energy, locally sourced and then piped under the street to every household! You might think this idea, known as district heating, is, well… a pipe dream. Or you might think, if you’re familiar with the government’s new heat network zoning strategy, that it will only happen in large towns and cities. On both counts, think again! 

About 800,000 households in England– many of them rural – still rely on oil for heating [Calculated using English Housing Survey 2023-4 and 2021 Census]. It’s messy, expensive, and bad for the environment, pushing out more emissions per unit of heat than even gas. And while homes on gas are protected to some extent by the energy price cap, oil prices are high and volatile, making heating oil users especially vulnerable to fuel poverty. It’s also unreliable, with householders expected to make sure their own fuel supplies remain topped up. 

The government is aiming for heat networks to supply 20 per cent of England’s heat demand by 2050, a significant increase from the current 3 percent, focusing on major towns and cities. Rural communities are not included in this strategy. But thanks to the collaborative efforts of local community groups and councils, supported by energy co-operatives and charities, some rural communities up and down the country are already planning to create heat networks of their own. 

Help is at hand. The Community Heat Development Unit (CHDU) is an 18-month research and innovation project, completed in October 2025. It was specifically set up to help communities develop their own heat networks, using data to identify good locations and viable business models. It’s led by the Sharenergy cooperative, with partners Community Energy England, Marches Energy Advice (retrofit/insulation experts) and Carbon Alternatives (technical heat network design), with funding from the Energy Industry Voluntary Redress Scheme. 

Leading the way has been a small village in East Cambridgeshire, where Swaffham Prior Community Land Trust and Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC) have worked together to offer a green heating alternative to oil. Using ground source heat pumps with backup from electric boilers and a nearby solar farm, sustainable thermal energy is now being pumped under the streets into homes, with a commitment to connect nearly all the homes in the village to the scheme.

Rural heat networks are catching on 

Swaffham Prior, the UK’s first rural heat network, is the pathfinder for a handful of other rural English communities in Northumberland, Staffordshire and Hertfordshire, which are now actively trying to clear the same feasibility and funding hurdles. The goal is affordable, dependable clean energy, and an end to fuel poverty. 

No one is pretending it’s easy or straightforward. Bishop’s Castle in Shropshire has been pursuing a community wind turbine and heat pump heating network, run by Shropshire & Telford Community Energy, Sharenergy, and Lightfoot Enterprises. After winning planning permission for the 900kW community wind turbine in 2025, building that into a full heat network has proved much harder. The heat network side is currently stalled on funding and pipe costs. 

Haydon Bridge in Northumberland is another pioneer village keen to promote the deployment of rural district heating owned by communities. The project, led by heat network consultancy Reheat, working with the rural community-support charity Community Action Northumberland and the Rural Design Centre, is at feasibility stage. 

Bioregional, who led development of the BedZED eco-village and the One Planet Living sustainability framework, has worked with four local communities across England to explore the feasibility of developing community-led, net-zero-carbon compatible heating networks: Whittington and Fisherwick in Staffordshire; Shenstone in Staffordshire; Brightwell-cum-Sotwell in Oxfordshire, and Grand Union Community at Kings Langley in Hertfordshire. 

Their work has included modelling the energy demand of existing buildings, exploring the feasibility of different heat sources in each local area, and developing technical and economically feasible solutions for community-wide heat networks. Vital community buy-in was achieved through in-depth community engagement workshops, introducing residents to the many benefits of a decarbonised community heating system: long-term price stability; a low-carbon source of energy; opportunities for local ownership, and potential investment opportunities. 

In many cases, the local Climate Action Network can help provide the civic infrastructure that makes community energy projects like Swaffham Prior or Bishop’s Castle possible: the trusted local network that does the door-knocking, holds public meetings, and builds the “90% of the village signed up” kind of buy-in that Swaffham Prior needed to get over the line. 

Green is the warmest colour! 

Carbon Copy is hosting a Community-to-Community Workshop where you can learn directly how the team at Swaffham Prior have successfully implemented their own renewable energy heat network. If you’re keen to explore how your community could do the same, then you should sign up for this free online session on October 13!   

Find out more and sign up.