At a time when many other local authorities across the UK are having to switch off their street lights to save money, Urban Vision have devised a strategy to maintain the street lighting performance in Salford, making significant savings for Salford City Council and help them reduce their carbon reduction targets.

The Existing Problem.

Salford City Council recognised the risks posed by the poor condition of its street-lighting stock and were concerned that energy costs were rising at around 15% per year along with carbon reduction targets that could not be met due to limited budgets available for projects.

The Solution.

The council knew that something must be done but concluded that an entire column replacement programme would be unaffordable and recognised that a more innovative solution was required.  Urban Vision came up with a solution that comprised an invest-to-save project to retrofit the existing columns with lanterns that would create energy and maintenance savings. These savings will finance the retro-fit of the existing street lighting lanterns and cover the cost of dealing with any street lighting columns that were structurally defective.

In 2011 a pilot retrofit of 2000 LED street lights were fitted across 300 streets in Salford. This pilot study is set to save the Council at least £80,000 each year in reduced energy and maintenance costs and will see the Council save around £1.6m over the 20 year expected life span of the LED lanterns. The Council will also reduce its total Carbon Reduction target by 30%.

Following the initial pilot retrofit of 2000 LED Street lights across Salford,  Salford City Council have now approved the roll out of a further 24,000 street lights across The City – which covers nearly every single street in Salford and is expected to save the council around £20m in energy savings over their 20 year life span.

In addition to the environmental and financial benefits, the LED lanterns will help support better detection of crime because they improve images captured at night from CCTV (closed circuit television). The pleasant, white light they produce accurately shows clothing colours and car registration numbers. This will help make streets feel safer and assist in giving more accurate descriptive information to the police.

Urban Vision will be commencing the installation of the 24,000 street lights in September 2012 with an estimated completion date of March 2014. Salford City Council will be the first local authority in the UK to undertake a self-funded complete retrofit of their existing street lighting stock with LED lanterns, while retaining the majority of their existing columns. All this has been financed through an invest-to-save financial model that is delivering annual budget savings for the Council.

Unsurprisingly, many other local authorities and organisations such as the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group are using Salford City Council’s LED Retrofit as a beacon project to follow.

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If you are a resident wanting further information about the LED Street Lighting Scheme in Salford or would like to provide us with your feedback, please download our Information Leaflet or customer questionnaire below.

LED Street Lighting Leaflet – Frequently Asked Questions

Your Feedback – Customer Questionnaire