Eco-friendly features inside Yate youth cafe are scrapped (From Gazette Series)

Eco-friendly features inside Yate youth cafe are scrapped

8:50am Monday 15th March 2010 in

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EXPENSIVE eco-friendly features inside Yate’s long-awaited youth café have been shelved.

Triple glazing on the windows of the youth café, which will be built on land next to Yate Leisure Centre, has been scrapped as town councillors try to keep the development on budget.

Estimates for the final cost of the project, which is being funded jointly by Yate Town Council and South Gloucestershire Council, have come in slightly over the £1.3million earmarked for the build.

Cllr Chris Willmore, who has been pushing for the café to be built for the past 10 years, said there were two options to keep costs down.

"The steering group committee has been looking at things that could be taken out," she said.

"The LED lighting and triple glazing would both cost £10,000 and removing one of those would take us under budget.

"Our whole aim has to be to get a building that is relatively cheap to maintain but is very energy efficient."

Cllr John Ford, a member of the steering committee, said: "We have been very unhappy that we can only get quotes for the triple glazing from one company.

"If the windows were smashed and that company went bust it could be very difficult to get replacements."

The council agreed to drop the triple glazing and install double glazing instead. The third layer of insulation would have saved 790 kilos a year in energy but the building will still be very ‘green’.

Said Cllr Ford: "The building is so green anyway that triple glazing is just a secondary issue."

However, Cllr Martin Monk said the youth café would be a shining example of an energy efficient building and if that meant going over budget the council should dig deep.

"We started off setting an example," he said. "If we are going to start cutting back I don’t see the point in it. We should go over budget and find the money from elsewhere."

Construction work on the café is due to start in June and it will open to teenagers at Easter next year.