Pioneering pool in Berwickshire aims to be the first zero carbon facility in Scotland

Berwickshire Recreation Education Sports Trust (BREST) operates Duns Swimming Pool, which has produced three Olympians and many Commonwealth swimmers.

Through its Learn2Swim programme the pool facilitates 600 lessons a week, and has built a great reputation over the last quarter of a century from users across the Borders, Northumberland and East Lothian.

Last week, members of Scottish Borders Council awarded BREST £127,000 to carry out efficiency works which will reduce energy costs by £62,000 per annum and reduce its carbon emissions by 56 per cent each year.

This will be achieved through the installation of an air source heat pump and solar PV.

But the ambitions of the sports trust go much further, with the creation of a zero carbon facility the long-term ambition.

Project manager Yvonne Huggins-Haig explained: “We intend to carry on like this so we can be as near net zero carbon as we possibly can, so next year we will start on another project perhaps to install a hydrogen or electric boiler as a back-up for the Air Source Heat Pump. This will rid us of all fossil fuels.

“It’s a big programme and I would like to see us become the first net zero carbon pool in Scotland – that would be fantastic and I don’t see why that is not achievable if we carry on the way we are.”