Measures to reduce Swansea Council’s street lighting energy bill are being introduced in June.
The Council hopes the plans will help save around £100,000 a year and will also help reduce the Council’s overall carbon footprint.
The plans will include:
- Switching off around 1,500 of the 27,000 street lights in the city. And the Council has confirmed the lights will only be taken out of action in non-residential areas such as bypass roads where there are no public footpaths.
- Around 1,000 older, high energy lights will also be replaced with more efficient, modern low energy lighting.
- Some lighting will be dimmed from 8pm instead of midnight to help save energy costs.
A testing programme of approximately 5,000 steel lighting columns will also take place between July and September in an effort to remove any which are considered structurally dangerous.
A previous testing programme was recently completed which involved the removal of approximately 200 out of 2,000 lighting columns that were tested. These are being replaced as resources become available.
Carl Humphrey, Head of Highways in Swansea Council, said: “Our main aim is to reduce the amount of energy used within street lighting in Swansea. We have looked very carefully at where we can turn off a small number of street lights in the city without causing any problems for residents.
“Public safety is important and we want to reassure residents that we are not looking at turning off lights in residential areas. Some local councils have turned off much larger percentages of their street lighting. We are only turning off a small percentage in non-residential areas.”
“This is not just about turning off some street lights. It’s about improving some of the existing lighting so that we reduce the amount of energy needed to power them.”
