Stump Cross Caverns - Renewables in practice

Stump Cross Caverns is one of Britain's premier show caves, located in Nidderdale on the border of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. They offer a range of other facilities including a gift shop and a tearoom. Owner Richard Bowerman was keen to improve his environmental credentials and with oil prices going up he started to look into alternative ways to receive energy. He found out about York and North Yorkshire Business Environmental Forum (BEF) through a referral from Yorkshire Forward:

Richard Bowerman, owner of Stump Cross Caverns, inside the premier show cave.

"BEF helped guide us through the process of installing solar panels. They worked with us to source three quotes for suppliers in the marketplace with minimal paperwork and helped us to access funding to make it all possible.

"We expect to reduce our oil consumption by a third in the near future and are looking at a range of other environmental initiatives for the future including wind power, photo voltaics, water turbines and ground source heat pumps."

BEF's business environmental coordinator Ruth Collins says: "Richard had done a lot of research into alternative uses of energy, he just needed guidance on how to implement them. Stump Cross Caverns are now looking at a number of other renewable energy sources, which we welcome."

BEF provided Renewable Energy grant funding through the 'exploiting the advantages of environmental technologies' scheme. The grant scheme enabled eligible businesses to access up to £4000 of match funding to purchase and install renewable energy technologies, including solar panels, photovoltaics, geothermal, wind and water power, fuel cells and energy crops.

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