Street light conversion programme moves to south-east Shropshire

A programme to save energy by converting street lights so they can switch themselves off in the middle of the night is moving to south-east Shropshire..

About 12,500 street lights 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 Shrewsbury, north and south-west of Shropshire has already been converted as part of the project, which started in April 2012, and now the work is moving to its final stage in the south-east of Shropshire.

The towns and villages affected include Albrighton, Alverley, Bridgnorth, Broseley, Chelmarsh, Claverley, Cosford, Highley, Morville, Much Wenlock, Quatford, Shifnal and Stottesdon.

Posters are being placed on street lights affected, and an interactive map showing which streets are being converted is on the Shropshire Council website.

Work is due to start in late September 2014 and will be completed within two months.

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, Cabinet member for highways, said:

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

“A huge amount of 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 street lights 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 street lights 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 Shropshire Council website.