Streetlights conversion programme moves to north Shropshire

A programme to save energy by converting streetlights so they can switch themselves off in the middle of the night is moving forward.

About 12,500 streetlights of the 18,900 maintained by Shropshire Council across the county are being converted to part-night lighting – meaning they switch off at midnight and come back on at 5.30am – to save carbon and energy costs.

Lights in the Oswestry, Shrewsbury and south Shropshire areas have already been converted as part of the project, which started in April 2012, and now the work is moving on to north Shropshire.

The towns and villages affected include Adderley, Calverhall, Cheswardine, Childs Ercall, Hadnall, Hinstock, Ightfield, Market Drayton, Norton-in-Hales, Prees, Prees Higher Heath, Shawbury, Stoke-upon-Tern, Wem, Whitchurch and Woore.

Posters are being placed on streetlights affected, and an interactive map showing which streets are being converted is on the council’s website at shropshire.gov.uk/street-lighting/part-night-lighting/.

Work is due to start in July 2014 and will be completed within two to three months.

The final area to see its lights converted will be the former Bridgnorth District Council area later this year.

It takes 7.7 million kilowatt-hours of power (and 3,490 tonnes of carbon) to run the council’s 18,900 streetlights, illuminated signs and traffic signals every year, which is the same amount of power used by 2,600 homes in a typical year.

Converting 12,500 of these lights to part-night lighting will reduce energy use by 20% – a saving of 1.56 million kilowatt-hours of power and almost 812 tonnes of carbon.

The plans were approved by Shropshire Council’s Cabinet back in September 2011, following detailed discussion between Shropshire Council, police, town councils and parish councils about how the scheme would work.

Councillor Claire Wild, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for highways and transport, said:

“This has been a long-running programme and we are now into the final stages of converting 70 per cent of our streetlights to part-night lighting.

“A huge amount to work took place, before work started two years ago, to ensure that the areas included in the programme were suitable.

“A partnership group, made up of council officers and the police, regularly monitor crime levels to see if there is any evidence that safety is being affected by streetlights being off at night.

“On the whole, reaction from the public has been positive, because they can appreciate that in most cases it’s simply a waste of energy to have streetlights on all through the night.

“A lot of people have also appreciated the reduction in light pollution too, which makes it much easier to view the night sky.”

For more information on the project, visit the council website here: shropshire.gov.uk/street-lighting/part-night-lighting/.