Essex council turns off the lights

Q: How many Essex girls does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: The same number as before, but the lightbulb lasts longer because its used less.

Kudos must go to the big brains in Essex County Council; their recent decision to switch off street lights between midnight and 5am makes clear economic and ecological sense.

They’ve stated that in some places the lights will have to remain on, but hopefully the continuing commoditization of infrared movement sensors can enable Essex and (more impotantly) other councils to adopt more aggressive energy saving measures in the not too distant future, allowing us to have dark (or at least much dimmer streets) in places where animals aren’t moving.

So, that’s lower council tax, and the ability to see the starry night. Essex house prices just inflated again.

15 Comments

Chris Samuel says:

15/07/2006 at 02:57

I can understand why they’ve done that, but I do remember when they used to do that in Aberystwyth and it didn’t feel too good walking back in complete darkness from an early mornings hacking on code..

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Jo says:

20/07/2006 at 15:13

Hmm… Nice idea in theory, but that’s exactly the time you need lights in residential areas, exactly because it’s so deserted. Wasn’t it for crime prevention that streetlighting in residential areas was brought in in the first place? When I come home late, I’m very very grateful for the streetlighting. Also, hasn’t it just been announced that muggings have gone up this year? (Admittedly this is using statistics I usually ignore to prove a point…)

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Rich says:

20/07/2006 at 15:52

Indeed, hence my note about a sensors; I think it’s an idea that needs to be developed.

There’s a passive IR security light set up over the road from us that flicks on fir just about anything (birds, mice, dancing crisp packets).

Fitting similar switches to street lights should reduce the amount of time they’re switched on, and if set up right, I doubt it would be any less safe.

In fact, it might be “safer”: if a light switches on (or un-dims) whenever there is an animal present it might be more obvious that there is something or someone lurking, whereas in today’s fully lit street, there is no such indication. So that might be a positive benefit.

There are drawbacks of course, the sensor must detect heat as well as movement, or a lurker could keep very still and the lights might go dim.

Also, sensors use electricity in addition to the lighting, so although it might be safer than turning the lights off altogether; the solution may in some cases may end up using more power than a normal light.

Incidentally Wikipedia has an interesting article on street lights (#24 in the series of sentences I never imagined uttering).

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Tim says:

08/08/2006 at 10:23

Being an astronomer I think its a good idea,however I agree that some sort of motion/heat sensors are used to help prevent certain crimes

When does this lighting swith off come into effect,soon I hope

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Alex H says:

16/08/2006 at 18:26

A nice idea in theory. However, sadly, the low-energy lamps that street lights use take up to ten minutes from turning on to reach full brightness, and they cannot (easily or cheaply) be dimmed – much like trying to dim a fluorescent light.

Interestingly, the older – pure orange – street lamps use a lot less energy than the brighter pink-orange or pure white lights. They are being phased out on major roads as their monocromacity makes it harder for drivers to make out what’s on the road. However, in quieter residential streets, these lamps are idea; typically, each light uses only around 35 watts of power – about a tenth of the equivalent filament bulb.

So, long-winded explanation aside, it strikes me that Essex council are somewhat robbing Peter to pay Paul here.

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Rich says:

16/08/2006 at 18:37

Intersting points there Alex (and long winded explanations are always of interest!) and it makes me wonder if a cluster of different specification LED’s might be a suitable and more appropriate solution in such circumstances.

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Basil Brown says:

10/11/2006 at 00:27

Essex CC’s move is entirely welcome in my view. Ever-higher levels of streetlighting have not produced the assumed reduction in criminality, in fact there is a growing body of evidence showing the relationship between levels of artificial lighting and crime to be an inverse: crime-rates rise as the loud-switch is turned up.

Motion-detectors? Nah, imagine the annoyance-factor of having these exceptionally bright lights switching off and on according to the mating-rituals of the neighbourhood cats. Our eyes adjust to the darkness. If you need more than starlight to navigate your way, then use a torch. Running rechargeables, naturally. I’m so pious.

You may be interested to have a gander at my blog on this subject. I’ve linked suitably-eminent researches to show negative road-safety implications of over-bright sodium lighting and I seek to illustrate the environmental benefits of alternative white-light sources running at lower lumen-levels.

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sheralyn byrom says:

10/07/2007 at 10:58

well i say turning the street light off would make crime worse why dont the council
get off there ass and think of something they could do like in the summer we use solar
powered lights they could use that through the summer and the winter turn the street light on would’nt that make sense

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NoName says:

11/09/2007 at 21:30

talk about people that don’t know about how street lights work?!! I worked fixing every possible type of commercial/council lighting products, the only type of ‘light’ that I haven’t worked on is LASERS.

The SOX lamp (the very yellow typical street light)is so efficient (infact the most efficient lamp ever made – even better than flouresent lamps) because it’s loaded with about 5 grams of mercury (a nasty liquid metal) which turns to vapour once it gets hot in a sodium atmosphere driven by an electric alternating current run by a simple HT ignitor and a ballast, this of course takes time, infact about 5-9 minutes to reach it full optimum efficiency, by which time the dancing crisp packet, mice, car, fox, rat, cyclist, or just even a human walking on foot would have passed the area requiered to be lit before there was any useful light generated! the other common light source found on our roads are the are sodium lamps, these differ greatly from the SOX lamps in design and the amount of mercury they contain (a hell of a lot less murcury! but dam expensive) they have a better colour rendition, they provide a wider spectrum of light still yellow but more like a warm sunny bright yellow almost like a white yellow. these are uesd on roads where there are crossings or traffic junctions or frankly anywhere where there is an increased risk of crime or danger (such as a dodgy bend in the road), these warm up alot quicker say about 2-4 mins, still a hell of a long time to wait for some light to appear on the subject/road/path. besides, turning these lights on and off all night everytime the sensors spaz out at a random heat source including genuine sources like a car or human on foot will burn out these lamps alot quicker, thus more lamps will require replacing much sooner, greater expense and will use alot of electric to get going from cold. so the idea of PIR street lighting is a DIM one, the same is for the street signage driven by 4,6 or 8 watt Flouresents, the lamps will burn out 800% + quicker, and knowing our wonderful ECC they will remain out and not working for months. As for the comment on lowering our council tax bill’s….Who are you kidding? yourself?? if but anything, they will put our tax bills up to cover the cost of extra maintenance. sorry but you know it’s true. and frankly to finnish….. this is Essex, to say that crime won’t go up is like saying a bull won’t charge at a washing line of red bed sheets! all the chav’s will think christmas easter and birthday have arrived every day (or night to be exact) each and every night, the police will be thumbling about in the dark trying to catch them also. lights off in Essex, yes it might just happen, but as for sensor’s – it will never happen with the current lamps used commonly today.

As for the Eco Frendly of us – Best Thing ECC could do is put up 3 or 4 massive wind turbines somewhere in essex that really windy that would effectively pay for themselves and the running costs of all the street lights, if it’s a cost effective way of doing so. and then just leave the lights on.

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Charles March says:

25/11/2007 at 18:59

The idea to switch of Essex road lights is criminally stupid! The cost saving per annum, per resident to provide all night lighting in less than 80p! And with China bringing new coal fired power stations on-stream at rate of 100 million kilowatts per year – every year whereas the UK’s steady state total power station capacity is a mere 60 million kilowatts makes nonesense of any idea of reducing CO2! Cut pollution and CO2 by all means, but NOT at the expense of people’s safety. Not at the expense of women being raped; not at the expense of old and vulnerable people living in fear. The ECC councillors who have proposed this crazy scheme need locking up. And perhaps they will be if they go ahead and people get hurt, mugged, raped and killed!

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jackie swatton says:

02/01/2008 at 21:39

I live in an area where the street lights have now been turned
off between 11.45 p.m. and 5 a.m. and it is the worst thing
essex council have thought of in a long time. It effectively
has put a curfew on all the women living in this area, who would
feel safe enough to walk home before, and now will get a taxi,
even if just around the corner, or drive….so much for saving
carbon footprints. I wrote to the council asking for a rebate
on my tax and they replied that it was such a negligible savings
that it wouldnt be passed on…well, in that case, PLEASE LEAVE
THE LIGHTS ON!!. I guess it will unfortunately take a crime of
some sort before they rethink their crazy idea. Some nights it
is pitch black, and as our local pubs call last orders at 12.30
p.m. and taxis are hard to come by, you see young girls walking
home in the middle of the road, because that is actually the
safest place to walk.
These people will not be getting my vote at the next elections!
And I have not spoken to one person yet who lives in my area
who agrees with the lights being turned off.

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Derek Lamb says:

10/03/2008 at 15:03

To solve some of the problems of using electricity we have an innovative product called “windela” which is a wind turbine/solar powered street lamp. These can be monitored remotely and generates its own electricity. Windela is used by Councils in France with great success.

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Pat Williams says:

04/08/2010 at 03:51

I think it’s a great idea and good to hear that the town is taking some measures to cut back rather than looking toward the taxpayers. If you are concerned about the safety of your own home, try having some security lighting installed around the perimeter of your home or your property. You can even get solar lighting now that is quite bright.

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Stuart Joyce says:

08/09/2010 at 11:24

Having done some research into this subject of turning off our street lights i have formed the opinion that the majority of people i have spoken to are dead against the idea.The decision to carry out this change is being implemented NOW so if anything is to be done to STOP it happening people must be bombarding their County Councillors with their protests.Don,t forget your Local Authority Councillors who have a right to make their views on the subject known to the County.The more people who protest the more likely a “stop” could be placed on the idea.Also the County is saying up to £1M can be saved by doing this but what they dont mention is the cost of the equpment and man hours to change the lamp standards.This information should be available in the public domain under The Freedom of Information Act 2000 and i shall be making it my business to request this information and making it known as i believe once this cost is taken into account the idea of saving a large sum of money will be blown right out of the water.

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- Rich says:
  
  08/09/2010 at 18:24
  
  This research sounds interesting Stuart. Could you tell us what you read so we might all cast an eye over it?
  
  Reply