Shropshire Star

£6.8 million plan to convert Shropshire street lights to LED

Almost £7 million will be invested to convert more than 16,000 street lights in Shropshire to LED.

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An LED street light

Shropshire Council is seeking to transform its 16,523 lights that are not already LED over the next three years.

A paper going to full council next Thursday says the move will cost £6.83 million, but will save the authority £506,533 a year.

More than 3,000 lights in the county have already been switched.

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Mark Barrow, director of place, will tell full council: “Shropshire Council wishes to invest within its remaining 16,253 street lights that are located across the county, to replace the traditional street lighting bulbs with LED replacement, and where required replace the street lighting columns.

“The LED conversion programme will contribute significantly to reduced energy consumption and will be intrinsic to the delivery of the council’s environment agenda, by reducing the consumption of electric by 56 per cent over the working period.

“The council currently spends approximately £1 million each year on energy for street lighting.

Change

“Recent projections indicate energy costs for street lighting will rise by between five per cent and 14 per cent over the next 10 years which could mean the annual cost increasing to nearly £3.7 million in that time and as high as £13.7 million in 20 years if prices rose by 14 per cent each year.

“This forecast is clearly unsustainable, and a change in the approach is required.”

Mr Barrow added: “By investing approximately £6.83 million over three years to convert the council’s 16,253 street lights to LED, it would reduce their consumption by 56 per cent ,saving approximately £506,533 per year (at today’s prices) in energy and a reduction in maintenance costs of an estimated £390,899 per year.

“In order to achieve the above intention, full council is asked to approve that Shropshire Council applies to SALIX (a government agency) for an interest-free loan, supported with identified and approved SC finance to deliver a total budget of £6,824,011 for the three years of the programme to deliver the improvements and changes.

“Replacing approximately 16,253 lights is a major construction project. There will be localised operational disruption as lights are changed and this could include lane closures to safely carry out the work.

“However, the work involved does not require any excavation or major road works – in most cases the replacement can be fully carried out in 15-30 minutes to each lantern.”