An innovative project to reduce energy costs to the local taxpayer is making excellent progress as it has reached the halfway point in replacing a proportion of its conventional street lights with state of the art LED technology.
When complete the new LED lights will save the local taxpayer £200,000 per year and reduce carbon emissions by nearly 800 tonnes per year – equivalent to 3% of the Council’s total carbon footprint. Some 2,000 traffic route lanterns have already been replaced out of 4,000 following a successful trial at Hicks Gate, one of the first routes in the UK lit with this new technology.
Councillor Roger Symonds (Lib-Dem, Combe Down), Cabinet Member for Transport, said, “LED is a technology provides safer roads because the lights are brighter and gives Bath & North East Somerset Council the opportunity to save substantial amounts of local taxpayers money. This supports our priority to protect essential frontline services as much as we can, especially bearing in mind the soaring costs of energy contracts.
“The lighting uses extremely clever dimming technology to reduce lighting levels according to the amount of traffic using the road. It is a terrific example of the Council improving a service to the public whilst saving money and it is also good for the environment. We are on-schedule to complete a full roll out of the LED lighting by Spring 2013.”
During the selection process of sites where the LED lighting should be used, the Council has identified a limited number of highway locations that may not require lighting at all taking into account their accident records. Two of these are relatively straight sections of road with few homes nearby. They are A367 Peasedown Flat and the A4, Corston, where a lower speed limit is starting.
A six month trial will take place experimenting without lights at these locations. This will consider whether road safety becomes a significant issue. If successful, the trial will become permanent. If problems become apparent, the existing lights will be replaced by LED technology.
There are a total of 16,000 streetlights in the area.
