Coventry’s LED streetlight upgrade starts next month
Nearly 30,000 streetlights will be upgraded in Coventry by August 2027
Coventry’s LED streetlight upgrade begins next month, starting with installations at St Michaels Ward, with the rollout continuing until August 2027.
A report to the city council’s communities and neighbourhoods scrutiny board this week (Thursday) will give an update on the lighting upgrade and it is expected that councillors will approve a decision to keep them on through the night although they will be dimmed.
In January, it was agreed to upgrade up to 29,500 streetlights at a cost of £10.2m and a report to be considered at the meeting explains that the inner city urban wards will be upgraded first.
Sherbourne, Radford, Foleshill and Upper/Lower Stoke are all set to be completed by the end of May with Binley/Willenhall the last on the list.
The report adds: “The rollout is based on reversing the order the part-night switch off was implemented but also taking into consideration maintenance schedules, a mixture of traffic and residential routes and the impact of weather.
"For example, Kenilworth Road can only be done in the summer as the ground needs to be hard due to the wide grass verge.”
Once upgraded, the streetlights in residential areas will be dimmed to 30 per cent at 10pm until they switch-off in the morning. In ‘traffic’ areas, they will be dimmed to 50 per cent at 10pm and then to 30 per cent at midnight until switch-off.
The report continues: “The dimming of the streetlights allows the council to regain the £700k savings lost from reversing the part night switch off but still keeping the lights on overnight.
"The reversal of the part night streetlight has been achieved due to a decrease in the energy price from approximately 38p kwh down to 24p kwh."
“The decrease in energy price allows the council to still achieve the targeted financial savings whilst being able to switch the lights back on overnight.
"The council has negotiated that the maintenance savings from not needing to change lamps in the LED streetlights for the remainder of the contract will be paid upfront which reduces the capital expenditure by £1.7m.”