The heritage village of Clovelly in North Devon, famous for its cobbled streets and tiny fishing harbour, has won the National Landlord of the Year award for Energy Efficiency. Run by the Energy Efficiency Association, the awards were held at the NEC in Birmingham last Friday 18th February, at a dinner with 700 participants. Clovelly won the award after completing a five-year programme of energy saving measures installed by period property insulation company, Mitchell & Dickinson, of Bideford, Devon.
Director of the Clovelly Estate Company, Honourable John Rous and his wife Zeenat attended the awards with Mitchell & Dickinson founder, Mukti Mitchell. At the same awards Mukti came third place as National Energy Efficiency Champion of the Year.
Mrs Zeenat Rous said “We are thrilled that Clovelly has won this prestigious national award. Clovelly Estate thanks staff, residents and the team at Mitchell & Dickinson, who worked steadily for five years to overcome the challenges of quirky historic cottages and achieve what may be Britain’s most energy efficient heritage village.”
Clovelly’s insulation programme has attracted interest from organisations across the UK including the National Trust and Country Land & Business Association. The installers, Mitchell & Dickinson, have insulated over 1,000 properties in Southern England including County Hall in Exeter and the CLA Headquarters in London.
Founder Mukti Mitchell said, “I started Mitchell & Dickinson to help owners of old properties and prove that they can be made energy efficient without spoiling their historic features. Old buildings loose five times more heat than modern buildings and a quarter of British homes are over 100 years old[1] so this needs to be addressed to avert climate change. Clovelly proves that even the most hard-to-treat properties can be insulated and it’s an honour to be recognised by the Energy Efficiency Awards.”
The work to make Clovelly’s 120 listed cottages energy efficient included fitting loft insulation, sloping ceiling insulation, concealed draught-proofing and award-winning secondary glazing. Together these measures are estimated to save around 40% of heat loss. The CosyGlazing, secondary glazing system is made of aeronautical Plexiglas and has been described as “virtually invisible”. It was developed by Mitchell & Dickinson and won the Chartered Institute of Building Sustainability Award.