By summer, Cookstown Leisure Centre will be able to boast one of the greenest heating systems in Northern Ireland.

For the last few years, a team of Co Tyrone farmers has been growing willow trees and now the first batch has been harvested, ready to be chipped for heating the leisure centre pool.

Today, the £250,000 boiler house and fuel store project was officially commissioned by council chairman Ian McCrea. The ground-breaking renewable energy initiative is set to save the Fountain Road leisure complex up to 50% in oil costs.

Cookstown District Council was the first in Northern Ireland to switch from a traditional oil boiler to a bio-mass boiler for its leisure centre, used by over 25,000 people each month.

More than 2,000 kilos of willow wood chips are needed every day to provide the energy to heat the swimming pools and recreational facilities with the conventional oil boilers required only for back-up.

By summer, the first harvest of willow grown locally by a consortium of five farmers - Northern Bio-Energy - will fuel the 500 kilowatt boiler.

“Our aim was to provide the same level of service to our ratepayers, while reducing our greenhouse emissions as well as supporting local farming diversification for a sustainable future, ” Mr McCrea said.

A second council, Omagh District Council, is hot on the heels of Cookstown and has just recently started to test its new wood chip boiler at its leisure complex.

James Cowan of Northern Bio-Energy revealed that some of the first willow from the 90 hectares planted by the consortium has already been harvested and is currently air drying, ready to power the boiler this summer.