RUSHCLIFFE Borough Council has abandoned plans to install solar panels on community buildings.

Councillors voted against the plans, which could have paid for themselves over 11 years, at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

The proposals, drawn up by officers, would have seen panels installed on six buildings including West Park cricket pavilion, Gresham sports pavilion and the education centre at Rushcliffe Country Park.

Deputy leader and finance portfolio holder Councillor John Cranswick said the plans were not economically viable.

However, Rushcliffe Liberal Democrat councillor Rod Jones said: "Short-sighted Conservatives have short-changed Rushcliffe residents, they've failed to set an example and they've failed to consider the rising costs of energy.

"Acknowledging that solar panels would also reduce the borough's high CO2 emission rates, they focused on the need to clean panels if they got dirty. As if none of them had seen how others use this technology, they described it as 'emerging'."

Council officers said the scheme would have helped the council to be more environmentally-friendly.

The council expected to earn around £35,000 per year from the panels. This would have been made by selling energy back to the grid, making savings in current energy costs and from receiving feed-in-tariffs from the Government.

These are payments, paid over 25 years, to organisations that produce electricity from renewable sources as an extra incentive.

This means it could have taken the council between 10 and 11 years to recoup the £346,000 cost of installation.

But Mr Cranswick said: "We weren't convinced there was a case. We couldn't be sure the feed-in tariffs would be in place for 25 years and we weren't sure about ongoing maintenance costs.

"We're committed to saving carbon but these are our finances for the benefit of the community – there is a huge risk we wouldn't make a return that was sensible over 25 years."

He added: "I agree we should be setting an example and will when it's sensible to do so."

Council officers said there was a low risk that the Government would remove the feed-in-tariffs but said there was a medium risk a full survey would show the sites were not suitable, that the council may want to sell its buildings in the future or that if the programme fell behind lower feed-in-tariffs could be paid.

The installation of the panels would have reduced the council's carbon emissions by just less than 1 per cent – it has a target to reduce its emissions by 15 per cent by 2020.