The sixth round of the Bristol City Leap Community Energy Fund is now open 🎉 – offering Bristol’s community organisations, charities and co-operatives grants, microgrants and zero-interest loans to investigate and deliver decarbonisation projects for the buildings they own or occupy. This round brings greater flexibility for loan funding to support capital costs, and applications close 23rd of September 2026.
We’ve already worked alongside three very different Bristol organisations navigating exactly this route: a housing co-operative weighing up district heat network connection, a Grade I listed Georgian church needing precise diagnostics for a heating replacement, and a much-loved city farm working out what to retrofit and what to rebuild. Here’s what each of them needed, and how the right technical evidence made the difference.
1. Somewhere Co-operative Housing Association: Bristol Heat Network Feasibility
Somewhere Co-operative Housing Association (SCHA) found itself with an unusual advantage: Vattenfall’s Bristol Heat Network pipework is being laid directly through Bedminster, with the future energy centre for that quadrant of the network due to sit right behind part of SCHA’s own housing stock. That proximity raised a real question – for their 14-property portfolio, does it make more sense to connect to the network, or to install individual air source heat pumps property by property?
SCHA identified four Victorian terraced properties as their representative sample for the study; within the project’s budget, we assessed two of these in detail – enough to establish a reliable baseline while keeping the study itself cost-effective on a tight budget. The conclusion was clear: a community-owned secondary heat network – SCHA aggregating demand with neighbouring properties into a single, collectively-owned connection to the main network – was the most viable route, coming in at roughly a third of the capital cost per dwelling compared to individual heat pumps.
2. Churches Conservation Trust, St Paul’s Church: Right-Sizing a Heating Strategy Without Invasive Testing
St Paul’s Church, Portland Square – known locally as the “wedding cake” church for its tiered Georgian architecture, and home to Circomedia’s circus and physical theatre school – was relying on two end-of-life gas boilers. The Churches Conservation Trust needed diagnostic evidence to underpin a heating feasibility study, against a tight 10-day funder deadline. The brief also called for invasive smoke testing to trace air movement through the building – a method that risked leaving residue on the historic stone and timber fabric.
We found another way. Coordinating early-morning mobilisations around Circomedia’s use of the building, we used multi-fan depressurisation testing to achieve the same visibility into air movement a smoke test would have shown, without any risk to the fabric. The result was a precise air permeability baseline of 6.72 m³/h·m²@50Pa – surprisingly tight for a Grade I listed church of this age – and a clear picture of exactly where the building was losing heat. That precision protects the Trust from over-sizing a replacement heating system based on worst-case heritage assumptions, avoiding unnecessary capital spend for years to come.
Churches Conservation Trust, St Paul’s Church: Right-Sizing a Heating Strategy Without Invasive Testing
View Case Study3. St Werburghs City Farm: From Diagnostics to a Low Carbon Technology Strategy
For over four decades, St Werburghs City Farm has been a vital piece of social infrastructure for Bristol – upporting adults experiencing mental ill-health and social isolation, adults with complex learning disabilities, and children who need an alternative to mainstream education. Before any decisions could be made about its buildings, the Farm needed a genuine, evidenced understanding of their actual condition and performance.
We began with air tightness testing and a thermographic survey to establish an accurate baseline, before delivering a Commercial Energy Survey – including a full Improvement Option Evaluation and PAS 2038 SBEM modelling – to identify the most cost-effective ways to improve energy efficiency. We’re now delivering a Low Zero Carbon Technologies Feasibility Study, assessing which renewable and low carbon technologies are genuinely appropriate for the site.
What These Three Projects Have in Common
Different building types, different organisations, different questions – but the same underlying principle running through all three: decisions about decarbonisation are only as good as the evidence behind them. A heat network connection, a heritage-sensitive heating replacement, and a phased retrofit strategy all depend on knowing what’s actually happening in a building, not what’s assumed to be happening.
That’s exactly the kind of technical evidence base the Bristol City Leap Community Energy Fund is designed to help organisations access.
If your organisation is considering an application to the sixth round of the Bristol City Leap Community Energy Fund – open now, closing on the 23rd of September 2026 – and needs the technical assessment, testing or feasibility work to support it, get in touch. We’d be glad to help.