Going green - the Cambridgeshire village leading the way with eco-heating

Watch a report by ITV News Anglia's Hannah Pettifer

A village near Newmarket is aiming to become the first in the UK to switch entirely to zero carbon heating.

£9 million is to be spent replacing oil tanks in gardens at Swaffham Prior with a pioneering heating network.

Work's beginning to install the village heating system Credit: ITV Anglia

130 boreholes, each 200 metres deep will be drilled in a field to extract the heat from the ground. Neighbours Emma Fletcher and Mike Barker started it all, and now half the village has signed up. 

More than half the village should be signed up to the new system from next March.

The people behind the project hope district heating could be the way forward for other rural communities.

Workmen putting in the new heating system in Swaffham Prior Credit: ITV Anglia

Emma and Mike Barker are directors of the Swaffham Prior Community Land Trust (SPCLT) which was also behind eight affordable homes for the village.

Mr Baker, 56, had previously worked for a Danish firm and knew about district heating schemes there.