How Howgate Close is helping Earking transition to a post-hydrocarbon era…. a journey of decarbonisation in Nottinghamshire.

Howgate Close has advanced the process of decarbonisation at a settlement scale. The Nottinghamshire village of Eakring was once the country’s largest inland oilfield. It now generates locally, sufficient renewable to power the village several times over.

Seventy years after the last drop of oil was extracted, Eakring boasts the most energy efficient group of dwellings in the UK.  These nine fossil-fuel-free homes, ‘Howgate Close’ have recorded SAP Ratings of 143A. They produce household energy bills of less than 45pence/day (incl Standing Charge) and Air Pressure Tests of less than 1.

During its 27 years of operation from 1939 to 1966, Eakring’s former oilfield, yielded 3,000 barrels of oil daily from 170 wells, employing 1,200 personnel. So vital was the role of Eakring’s oil during the second world war that Geoffrey Lloyd, Secretary for Petroleum (1940-1942) wrote the following.

“…Oil was also heat and light and mercy…..it fuelled kitchens, it powered the radios and telephones, it warmed and illuminated the hospitals. It refrigerated the life-saving plasma’s it heated the instrument sterilizers, it ran signal devices, water purification systems, and repaired machinery.”

A Journey of Decarbonisation in Nottinghamshire

Eighty four years after Eakring No.1 pump first struck oil in June 1939, nine fossil-fuel-free homes have provided nine local households with fossil-fuel-free lifestyles.

Once Britain’s oil exploration epicentre, Eakring’s nodding donkeys are now replaced with post-hydrocarbon ready homes, solar farms and wind turbines. Eakring is now emerging as a settlement in transition, on a journey to decarbonisation.

Eakring is a settlement that has started the process of transitioning to a post-hydrocarbon era, leading its own journey of decarbonisation. Perhaps this Nottinghamshire village is unique in the UK. Within its environs it still has standing the apparatus used for the winning of fossil fuels sitting alongside the apparatus used for delivering fossil-fuel-free energy and homes.