HOOK Norton last night looked set to become one of the greenest communities in the UK after the village was given £500,000 towards projects aimed at slashing its energy use.

Villagers in the village, near Banbury, set up Low Carbon Hook Norton in February 2008 and this week it was named as one of 22 projects across England to receive a share of £10m.

The funding, from the Government’s Low Carbon Community Challenge, will be used to fund a range of measures to reduce the village’s carbon footprint.

At the centre of the project is Hook Norton Church of England Primary School.

Solar panels will be installed on the roof and used to power classroom equipment and two community electric pool cars, which will be based at the school and available for anyone in the village to use.

The school will also install a ground source heat pump – a piece of equipment that extracts heat from the ground and uses it to heat classrooms. Hook Norton Brewery will be the base for a biodiesel pump, which will allow members of the community to fill their cars with biodiesel converted from chip fat oil.

And some of the money will provide interest-free loans so people can insulate their lofts and install solar panels.