The Council yesterday unanimously agreed to my motion to investigate placing photovoltaic panels over some of the off-street car parking areas run by the Council.

The motion read:

“That the Chief Executive carry out a feasibility analysis of placing photovoltaic panels above the parking areas of some of the over 5,000 off-street car parking spaces provided by the Council.”

The webcast can be seen here.

The motion is informed by this report by Cllr. Cadogan Enright from Downpatrick which I referred to in the debate and which demonstrates the possibility for local authorities to bring in revenue from solar power. It received cross-party support and I will follow up in the budget process if no feasibility analysis is intitiated before then.