A preferred option to return to all-night street lighting when Kent’s new energy-efficient Light Emitting Diode (LED) lamps are installed – meeting residents’ needs and savings targets – will be considered next week by Kent County Council members.
Work to convert the county’s 118,000 street lights to LED is due to begin in residential areas next month and will be completed within 38 months.
This will save Kent taxpayers up to £5.2 million a year, once installed.
The newly-upgraded lighting will be connected to an individual central management system (CMS) that will allow the authority to monitor and provide optimal lighting levels in the future.
Given this new flexibility, a 10-week county-wide consultation on street lighting preferences was carried out last autumn. The findings will be debated on Friday 12 February at a meeting of the Environment and Transport Cabinet Committee.
In addition to promoting the consultation online, deliberative groups were facilitated in Ashford, Ramsgate and Tunbridge Wells, and research was undertaken with focus groups – specifically shift workers, the elderly and university and college students.
Of the more than 3,700 responses, 63% said they preferred all-night lighting, while 37% said they preferred part-night lighting at the current level.
Matthew Balfour, Kent County Council Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport, said: “Now we are in a position to both make savings and respond positively to the views expressed in the LED street lighting consultation, we can now recommend that we adopt all night lighting.
“This could happen once a street light has been converted to LED and is commissioned on to a central management system.
“The CMS technology will allow us to consider requests from the community to alter the pattern of lighting levels.”
For more information, click here: https://democracy.kent.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=831&MId=6329
Kent County Council 5 February 2016
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