Cambridgeshire along with many other areas of England and Wales are having their Street Lighting – Upgraded and or replaced/taken away.
This is a Government lead initiative!…..To improve and make Street Lighting more efficient and environmentally better.
Here in Cambridgeshire/Fenland, this was planned by Cambs County Council along with the contractor Balfour Beatty. It is under a PFI agreement which means we will pay for the next 25 years and beyond.
Initially there was little or No consultation either with District/Town Councillora and the public in general. We as councillors made noise about this and shortly afterwards there was some sort of dialogue…..
We have now reach a stage whereby BB (Balfour Beatty) have identified which Lighting has to go, which is to be replaced and which does not belong too their contract.
Most households will have had some notification by now, there is to be an overall ‘Loss’ of 10% of lighting columns. This ‘may be’ offset by the brightening more efficient lighting that is being installed but not in all cases.
BB now have personnel in place who are contactable and approachable with issues and problems.
Whittlesey Town Councillor (some) are quite involved, and most of us have been out at night time to survey the areas where the proposed loss of columns are to be taken out.
In the majority of cases (and not everyone can be happy) the exercise will work fairly well.
Here are some issues….
There appears to be some doubt of the methodology used in identifying these columns.
As some columns are FDC they are not affected.
We will end up with some 5 metre columns, some 6 metre columns all dimmable
Some very old FDC which are old lighting and are not dimmable.
Stonald Road for example will have 3 types of lighting, 3 different colours and 3 different heights……
If you have and problems or issues I am more than happy to listen/advise.
