Little Red Bus - Rainwater helps red bus go green

Little Red Bus is a registered charity that provides accessible transport services for the community. Their work involves picking people up from the remoter areas of North Yorkshire and the rest of the Yorkshire region, as well as providing a registered local bus service, home to school and social services work for local authorities.

In August 2006, when moving premises to a specially designed building that could accommodate over 30 buses, Little Red Bus turned to the York and North Yorkshire Environmental Forum (YNYBEF) for advice and support to help 'Little Red Bus go Green'.

Lucy Beadle of Little Red Bus wanted help with rainwater harvesting 'With so many vehicles to regularly wash, water usage was one of our biggest costs. Harvesting rainwater saves money and reduces our carbon footprint.'

Getting the grant could not have been easier said Lucy, 'the Business Environmental Co-ordinator visited our site, assessed our needs and helped in clearing the grant paperwork. I would recommend going for the grant as it really helped us put our renewable strategy into practice.

The rainwater harvesting system consists of an old whiskey barrel and a pump. This sends the collected water into a storage tank in the garage. The tank has a down pipe and together with a pressure water Jet, which runs off bio-diesel, washing the buses is more efficient than before and we haven't yet run out of water!'

Lucy adds 'Monitoring costs and usage is ongoing. We have found that by comparing before and after bills significant savings are already being made, which is very encouraging. Energy efficient lighting has also been installed which together with super insulation really does mean that Little Red Bus has gone green.'

YNYBEF provides Environmental Technology Grant through the 'Implementing Environmental Best Practice' scheme. The grant scheme enables eligible businesses to access up to £1500 in funding - matched at 50% by the business - to make recommended energy efficiency improvements and install energy efficient technologies including condensing boilers, insulation, low energy lighting and water control equipment.

The BEF programme is supported by the European Regional Development Fund and Yorkshire Forward, and is managed by Business Link York and North Yorkshire.

For further information contact the Business Environmental Forum on 01904 554541.