Hammerstone Road Depot, which is home to Manchester’s refuse collection vehicles, is set to undergo improvement works in preparation of Manchester City Council’s fleet of refuse vehicles going zero emissions.
Once home to the railway manufacturers Beyer and Peacock, who churned out nearly 8,000 railway locomotives on the site between 1854 and 1966 – Hammerstone Road Depot is preparing itself for the future with transformational environmental changes to support Manchester’s carbon neutrality ambitions.
The depot, which now holds refuse vehicles that collect waste across Manchester city, spans a total area of 3.08 hectares and is dominated by a 10,000 square meter industrial unit, which will soon undergo a full refurbishment to complete by 2023, with a carbon reduction strategy embedded at its heart.
Plans for the site include a £10m investment to create the UK’s largest fleet of electric refuse vehicles (eRCV), with the purchase of 27 brand-new zero emissions vehicles which will help reduce carbon emissions and air pollution.
Working in partnership with waste collector Biffa, it is anticipated the switch to electric refuse vehicles will save around 900 tonnes of carbon emissions every year.
Upgrades to the depot in the form of a £700k investment into the delivery of a 700 kWp mounted solar panels on the depot’s roof are also expected to save around 170 tonnes of carbon emissions.
In total £17.2m is being invested across Greater Manchester as part of the Unlocking Clean Energy in Greater Manchester (UCEGM) project, which aims to deliver a number of renewable schemes across the region, creating a blueprint for other city-regions in the UK to follow to help them achieve Net Zero carbon emissions.
£8.6m of match funding has been secured from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) by a partnership between Energy Systems Catapult and other Greater Manchester Local Authorities, including Rochdale, Salford, Stockport and Wigan.
