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15
Sept 2023
Local streetlights could be switched off at night to save money
Streetlights on footways in North Yorkshire could be switched off between midnight and 5am as part of a new policy.
North Yorkshire County Council reduced the hours its roadway lighting was switched on between 2012 and 2016.
Now its successor authority, North Yorkshire Council, is looking to do the same with footway lights.
The Conservative council, which could be forced to use £105 million of reserves to cover deficits over the next three years, is expected to approve the measure on Tuesday when its ruling executive meets.
It is also expected to approve spending £2.5m on replacing thousands of footway lights before they fail.
The executive will consider a three-step plan to replace 900 decrepit concrete street lighting columns, introduce 4,000 energy efficient LED lanterns on existing steel columns and change sensors on about 2,000 existing LED lanterns to part-night photocells.
An officer’s report to the meeting states residents, parish and town councils will be consulted over the proposed part-night lighting.
The report adds much of the existing footway lighting, which transferred from the former district and borough councils to North Yorkshire Council in April, will be beyond repair within the next five years due to changes in EU legislation that made numerous lamp types obsolete.
The report states it had been estimated some 5,000 of the former district and borough councils' footway and amenity lights used obsolete light sources such as high-pressure mercury and low-pressure sodium.
It states:
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Switching footway lighting off between midnight and 5am will further reduce energy consumption and contribute towards the council’s carbon reduction targets, the meeting will hear.
Executive members will be told upgrading the lighting to LED would produce an energy saving of 1.3 million kw/h, cutting 340 tonnes of carbon dioxide and £440,000 in annual energy costs.
The meeting will hear the obsolete concrete columns are “most prone to structural failure” and their replacement will offer the opportunity to
provide multi-purpose lighting columns.
The new lighting columns could be used to support attachments such as sensors, CCTV cameras, ANPR cameras, flower baskets, Christmas displays and next generation BT mobile phone transmitters.
The council’s finance boss, Councillor Gareth Dadd, said concerns had been raised over community safety when the council first reduced the street lighting hours, but increased incidences of crime had not transpired.
He said:
The authority’s Green Party spokesman and Ouseburn councillor Arnold Warneken said as the proposed programme was set to cut the council’s carbon footprint and save money it appeared to be a “win-win scenario”.
He said:
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