Nationwide Street Lighting Debate Latest- Kent Police oppose street lighting switch off in their county.

The UK debate on how best to save energy and cut carbon in street lighting continues. Counties involved in the debate are now concerned with the issue that turning off street lighting may increase crime levels. 

Exeter's plan is to turn of lights between 12:30am and 5:30am on minor, less busy roads. Loughborough followed suit by switching off around half of all its streetlights from midnight to 5:30am as part of the Leicestershire county attempt to cut energy costs. 
Instead of turning its lights off, Gloucestershire county council has indicated that it is moving ahead with a plan to install LED street lighting across the county. The county council stated on its website that, 'Approval was given for the council to go to the market and invite proposals for a 12 year contract to replace our street lighting with LED technology.'

Gloucestershire has made other attempts to save energy on its street lighting. By dimming lights on main roads and implementing partial night lighting it is working towards reducing the annual £2 million that its 60,000 street lights consume in electricity, but it believes that using LED street lighting will include further benefits such as, 

- 'Up to 50% reduction in energy usage.'
- 'They can also be dimmed to any level of light output with a corresponding decrease in energy use.'
- 'Low usage- 70% reduction in street light lamp maintenance costs.' 
- 'Better quality of light.'
- 'Fewer faults.' 
- 'Less light pollution.' 

Wigan, has become the latest UK municipality to switch street lighting to LED, now joining with Liverpool and Glasgow.  The borough is investing £11 million to replace 31,000 lights with LEDs.

'I know some councils are switching lights off to save money but I don't think that's something people would want in Wigan Borough,' Wigan Council Leader Lord Peter Smith said in a press release. 'We’ve instead come up with a new scheme to replace our existing lights with LEDs which will still offer the same service the public expects but will be considerably cheaper.'

Wigan has opted for Philips LEDs and control systems, and is counting on Philips to cut their electricity bill by 60%, save them £1 million a year and provide lighting that will last for twenty years plus. 

Whilst several areas have decided to replace their street lighting with LEDs, most of the counties involved maintain that turning off the street lights during the early hours will make a long term energy saving, most probably to avoid paying the initial costs of LEDs. What  cannot be overstated is how much energy, money and time LEDs would save the councils but finding a spare £11 million like Wigan, is a mean feat for most councils. 

The debate over street lighting is now concerning other issues than its costs, worryingly, taxi drives in Chepstow are showing their dissatisfaction with the street lighting being switched off for several hours in the night by claiming that it will increase their chances of running over hard to see drunkards!

 Chepstow have already started turning off street lights between midnight and 5 in the morning in an effort save £180,000, a mere fraction of the money that could be saved by switching to LEDs. 

Meanwhile, Kent County council have promoted that switching off street lighting in the dark hours is 'safe and sensible' but the resident backlash has stated that switching of street lighting is anything but. Kent police are backing residents, they suggest that street lighting has proven to cause reductions in crime levels.
Kent began switching off street lighting in quiet areas from 1am to 6:30am and Police have been monitoring the crime levels in such areas since. They confess its too early to tell whether crime levels have indeed increased but its concerns are partly based on a report from the professional association, the College of Policing. 

And so, the debate continues...

Led Lighting Saves on Energy Costs and Cuts Carbon Footprints.

Businesses that swap their conventional lighting for LED sources could save as much as 85% in energy consumption, according to Paul Higgins, associate director at The Carbon Trust. The Trust is an organisation which helps businesses to find ways to cut their carbon emissions and operating costs. 
Lighting costs can account for up to 40% of a building's electricity consumption therefore the potential reduction of energy bills from using LEDs is certain to be worthwhile. 
Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) have been in use for over forty years, most commonly as the standby indicator on your television. However in the present day, due to the constant advances in technology, Huggins suggests that they are utilised in a much wider range of applications, from office to amenity lighting, accent and display lighting, even for illuminating large interior and exterior areas. Although switching to LEDs is a relatively expensive initial purchase, due to using a fraction of the electricity of traditional incandescent lamps, effectively they pay for themselves several times over before they need to be replaced. Furthermore, since the introduction of the LEDs into the market, prices have decreased substantially. 

Angel of the Light
The Necessary Angel (artangel.co.uk), a boutique style shop in Keswick, Cumbria, specialises in contemporary jewellery all hand-crafted in Britain and has experimented with lighting solutions since its establishment in 1990. 
Johnnie Walker who owns the company with his wife, Deborah Cowin has commented that "lighting is so vital for a jewellery business, the most important consideration for us is the brightness, followed by the coolness. Heat affects the texture and longevity of the display cabinets, which are made of wood. And anything that lessens the impact of the environment is good."
The Necessary Angel used dichroic halogen lamps to highlight its displays for many years, Walker has said that "the dichroics were cheap and bright but very hot, used a lot of energy and burned out regularly. We gradually introduced LEDs and then, a year ago, when we refitted the shop, we swapped to LEDs for all our displays, using strips in the cabinets and single bulbs containing three LEDs to focus on the individual pieces of jewellery." 
Walker continued to comment that, "The LED strip lights replaced three 20-watt halogens on a lighting strip and a couple of compact fluorescents. We tend to refurbish the shop every five years so the lights should outlive the cabinets. We will definitely get a return on our investment. There has been a leap in LED lighting in the last five years. They're affordable, very bright and damn reliable."

The Led Specialist Lights the Way
The Led Specialist sells over one hundred different types of LED lamps, including GU10s, candles, low voltage MR16s, golfballs, AR111s, strip lighting, par lamps and many more. Lamps can be a bit confusing so please see our website (theledspecialist.co.uk) for more information on the lamps we offer, how long they last and which lamps they can replace. We offer competitive prices on LED lighting solutions so start saving money on your energy bills now!