UK must face up to life in the shadows

15 October 2008

Local highway authorities may have to switch off one in three streetlights at night, in response to the worsening economic situation.

This was the stark warning from Matthew Lugg, chair of the UK Roads Board, as he outlined that the managers of environmental services departments ‘will have to make difficult decisions, given rising costs, and the constraints on the public purse’.

To date, only a handful of authorities have considered switching off streetlights in response to escalating energy costs, but now, ‘everyone is looking at this,’ according to Lugg. The cost of un-metered electricity prices was rising by 40% in one year, forcing councils to find ways of driving down costs.

The Institution of Lighting Engineers has suggested that councils dim lights, rather than turning them off, or decommissioning lamps. However, the ILE has acknowledged that ‘invest to save’ measures, such as fitting dimming control gear, require capital funding, which officers would need to justify to local politicians.

Lugg commented: ‘Why spend a lot of money lighting up England between midnight and 5am, when hardly anybody is around?’ As many as one-third of streetlights could be turned off during these hours, without adversely affecting road safety or public safety, he said. There was also likely to be ‘even greater emphasis’ on the need for collaborative procurement and other initiatives to secure efficiency savings, predicted Lugg.

The next Comprehensive Spending Review is likely to see public spending reined in, given predictions that public debt will overtake national income following the bail-outs of failing banks.

However, the UK Roads Board chair said the Government was unlikely to follow a Barack Obama-led United States in investing extra money in ‘rebuilding crumbling roads’ to create new jobs.

The UK was suffering from the ‘reverse problem’ to the US of having a large-scale programme of new infrastructure without the necessary workforce to deliver it, said Lugg.

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