Dark days loom as energy costs rocket

22 November 2006

Contracts for streetlighting electricity have risen by 40% for the second year running, eating further into local authorities’ maintenance budgets.
The UK Lighting Board is undertaking a further survey of the cost of streetlighting energy contracts following its finding that they had rocketed by 44% in 2005/06. But chair, Roger Elphick, said early indications were that prices had gone up again by around 40%. ‘Energy costs are taking up an ever-larger proportion of our budgets,’ he said. In Elphick’s county of Durham, half its £5.9M street lighting revenue budget – 10% of its entire highway maintenance budget – was now spent on electricity.
The Local Government Association was also using the evidence of inflation-busting rises in costs as ammunition in its battle to get the chancellor to rethink a proposed freeze in council budgets from 2008/09 (Surveyor, 16 November).
Elphick hoped councils would not simply switch off lights, but consider other options for cutting costs. But this would take time, because they would inevitably ‘have to spend money to save money’ on measures.
An ‘invest to save’ advice note on managing the high and rising cost of electricity emphasises the legal and safety risks – and costs – of decommissioning street lamps will be discussed at a Surveyor-Institution of Lighting Engineers conference next month.

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