Pressure on public spending and a commitment to making the best use of public resources has meant that East Sussex County Council (ESCC) has focussed on a more appropriate level of lighting, where and when it is of most benefit.
It could not carry on providing street lighting in exactly the same way it had been, like so many other authorities it has been forced to make very difficult decisions in order to reach significant savings over the coming years. ESCC were spending close to £1.4 million a year on electricity for street lighting and has now opted for LED.
Following on from the successful LED lantern replacement scheme in Eastbourne, Hastings is the next town to benefit from the installation of this lighting for its residential roads. LED is state of the art in the lighting industry and gives a white light which enables good colour rendering, meaning colours can be seen and facial recognition is made easier. ESCC says this will improve safety by helping CCTV cameras capture clearer images and is far more controllable, causing less light back-spill into adjacent properties and less light pollution into the night sky. The new lighting is also able to pick up car number-plates in much more detail than the traditional yellow lanterns.
The LED lighting units range from 8 LED 16 watt units (equivalent to the original style 35w low pressure Sodium lanterns consuming approximately 58 watts each) up to 40 LED 64 watt units (equivalent to the original 90watt low pressure Sodium lamps consuming 110 watts each). These changes will save in the region of £130K per annum on electricity costs, add to this the (CO2) Carbon, a saving estimated to be some 800 tonnes. The scheme will contribute significantly to the overall County Council demand to reduce its costs.
Officers from East Sussex County Council (ESCC) are looking to save £885,000 of public money from the county council’s energy budget by 2018. Councillors estimate changes so far has already saved £150,000 from the authority’s annual electricity bill. Cherry-pickers across Hastings are being used to change every streetlight in the town which in total numbers 5,500.
The modern lighting LED lantern conversions have caused some problems as Hastings has several lighting features in the Old Town and conservation areas. East Sussex County Council and Colas have considered the concerns of residents and where possible have worked together to resolve the problem of retaining these columns yet making them work with the new LED lighting. Solutions were developed to change the light source while maintaining the ‘Old fashioned’ appearance of the lighting column, this enabled nearly all of the original cast iron lighting columns throughout the borough to be retained. In some cases, an extension bracket, sympathetic in style to the original but increasing the height of the light source was developed and fitted to provide better light levels.
Many of the original wall and decorative lighting units will be converted to LED without the need to replace entire fittings by using specially developed modules that are designed to be placed into the existing lights.
Recycling was a key feature of this program, enabling some of the original lanterns to be reused in other areas of the county. These lanterns were modified to accept a lower wattage, producing a more efficient light source, and installed under a maintenance repair program to replace faulty lanterns that are beyond economical repair. This resulted in a 60% saving over the cost of a new fitting.
Any Plastics, Fibre glass and metals were recycled as were electrical components. The scheme is currently on schedule to meet its completion date enabling the predicted saving to be accomplished.
