Coventry City Council’s Cabinet are set to discuss plans to improve the city’s streetlights.
The plans, which would be debated at Cabinet on 10 December, would see the Council invest more than £10 million upgrading the city’s streetlighting with LED technology.
Over 29,000 individual lights, would be changed, representing a major overhaul of the city’s system. In the longer term, this investment will provide substantial economic and environmental benefits across the city.
In the last financial year, the Council’s energy bill for street lights was £3.4 million. The new LED lighting will use almost half the energy that the current ones do, resulting in energy and maintenance savings of £900,000 per year based on current costs. LED’s lights also last longer – up to four times longer than the current lanterns, too.
The new bulbs will require far less maintenance than the current ones, enabling further savings for the Council, and will also reduce carbon emissions for the city by 1,200 tonnes every year – equivalent to taking 268 cars off the road.
In a bid to take further advantage of new technology the upgrade would see smart sensor ports installed in 20% of the new lanterns, which will allow the council to easily collect environmental data such as air quality, noise, or traffic flows, for example, across the whole city.
A successful LED trial has already been implemented in the Hillfields area which has received positive feedback from residents.
Cllr Patricia Hetherton, Cabinet Member for City Services, welcomed the decision, saying: “This is another example of how we’re looking ahead as a city. This transformative project is another example of the city’s commitment to reducing carbon alongside the roll out of an all electric bus fleet in 2025 and the fact that we have more on street change points than any city outside London.
“The new LED bulbs will enable us to cut costs as well as reduce our carbon footprint and the smart technology in a fifth of the lanterns will allow us to monitor important environmental data across the city.
“Like every authority, we’re having to make some really tough decisions due to financial pressures. It’s a situation that requires us to think creatively about doing things differently. That’s exactly what we’re doing here, we’re investing in the short term to not only provide a better service but also a financially efficient one.”
If the plans are approved by Cabinet, they will be put forward for discussion at Full Council on the 14 January 2025.