31 Cumbrian firms to share in £1 million to cut carbon and innovate

Thirty-one Cumbrian businesses will be awarded a share of £1 million to innovate and cut carbon emissions.

The cash, from Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership’s Innovating for Success scheme will unlock £2.8 million of the businesses’ own investment, with the grants resulting in over 4,000 tonnes of CO2 savings over the next 10 years.

The innovation projects are expected to deliver an additional £35 million of economic value over the same period.

The programme, aimed at helping Cumbria’s SMEs from across the county. A total of 18 innovation grants of up to £50,000 have been handed out, while 14 decarbonisation grants have been awarded. The one-off grants will be used to part fund investment projects, helping unlock further investment into the county.

Successful organisations will use the grant to stimulate clean growth and cut their carbon emissions through sustainable initiatives, whilst others plan to use this to transform digital services, push forward innovation and create new products and prototypes.

Jo Lappin, chief executive of Cumbria LEP, said: “The Innovating for Success grant supports both innovation and helping businesses to decarbonise and support the LEP’s commitment to achieving net zero in Cumbria. The successful businesses have demonstrated impressive and imaginative ways to move their businesses to the next level.

“It was a highly competitive process, so I would also like to thank those organisations that applied but which were unsuccessful, this time round. Many of the projects were very strong contenders and we will want to continue to work with these businesses to explore other ways to support their plans.

“It was great to see that so many of our local businesses continue to show ambition in innovation or decarbonisation, despite some of the challenges of recent years. These ambitious businesses are really leading then way in getting Cumbria’s economy back on a path to growth.”

One of the successful businesses was Delkia Limited, a specialist systems integrator, which intends to use the grant to support key research and development initiatives.

Ben Carroll, research and development deputy manager at Delkia Limited, said: “This will kickstart the development part of our flagship research and development project, Project Bumblebee, allowing us to turn our innovative idea into intellectual property and add value to our rapidly growing company.

“As a Cumbria-based business, it’s fantastic to see investment in local innovation to grow the region’s economy and promote prosperity. The hardware purchased with the support of this grant will allow us to prototype our unique method for generating safety-certified vehicle control code, ready for demonstration at DSEI 2023. This will be the first of many R&D projects for Delkia, as innovation is one of our key strategic pillars, and we are proud to be entering the exciting world of innovation.”

Muncaster Castle won a share of the decarbonisation grant and have big plans to decarbonise the 13th century castle and wider countryside.

Ewan Frost-Pennington, operations manager, said: “This fund will greatly benefit our organisation as we work towards our goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions.

“Demonstrating that a 13th century castle can fully decarbonise we hope will inspire others across Cumbria to also push for zero carbon. As a tourist attraction we feel we are ideally placed to demonstrate the technologies and disseminate our learnings on how to decarbonise both to other businesses and the wider countryside.

“With this grant, we have big plans to make the castle fully electric, optimise our ground source heat pump and invest in innovative decarbonisation technologies, such batteries and micro hydro. This grant allocation represents a significant opportunity for us to make a real difference in the fight against climate change.”

The full list of Cumbrian businesses awarded grant funding are: