A taxpayer-funded green scheme designed to hit SNP climate targets has been branded “absurd” after it emerged it would take almost 1,000 years for taxpayers to recoup costs.

The price of decarbonising a small Victorian Crown Office building in Elgin, which involves insulation and installing a heat pump to replace a gas boiler, has spiralled to £3.5 million. The Telegraph has the story.

The estimated saving on annual energy bills is just £3,885, meaning it will take more than 900 years for the public purse to be reimbursed.

SNP and Green ministers want all Scottish homes to have zero emissions heating systems by 2045, and have sought to sell the plans to the public by claiming switching to heat pumps will cut their bills.

However, critics have said costs of converting will be extortionate, particularly for older properties.

“This Crown Office scheme involves utterly ludicrous expense to the taxpayer for minute benefit,” Fergus Ewing, a former SNP minister who now sits as a backbencher at Holyrood, told the Sunday Mail.

“According to these revelations, the annual savings will only be £3,885 and, as the total costs of the work are £3.5m, it will take nearly 1,000 years to recoup the benefits. And that may not even take account of electricity running costs.”

The original costs of the “experimental” project to decarbonise the small procurator fiscal’s office in Elgin, Moray, was initially estimated to be £2.2 million. It rose to £3.5 million within a few months.

The scheme was supposed to demonstrate the viability of converting Victorian buildings to operate with environmentally friendly heating systems.

However, figures disclosed through Freedom of Information suggest the project is costing £2,342 per square metre, with the building’s annual gas bill only around £2,500 on average.

Based on those figures, a 100-square-metre flat would cost £234,000 to convert, and a 150-square-metre house would cost the property owner £351,000. The average cost of a home in Scotland is £189,000.

Carbon-neutral targets

Sources at the Crown Office, Scotland’s prosecution service, said they were “obliged” to undertake measures to meet targets set by the SNP government, which call for emissions to be reduced by 2.5 per cent per year and for the organisation to become “carbon neutral” by 2040.

The Scottish Government has set a “backstop” date of 2045 for all homes to use zero direct emissions heating systems.

Read the full story here.