Stevenage Sees The LED Light

This week LED street lights are being installed on Stevenage’s A-roads by contractor Ringway to bring energy efficient white lights to where they once shone yellow.

As part of Hertfordshire County Council’s road improvement projects work will be carried out to convert the area’s A-road streetlights to LEDs (light emitting diodes).

Terry Douris Cabinet Member for Highways said: “The conversion of our existing lights to this modern technology forms part of Hertfordshire County Council’s on-going commitment to maintain and improve roads across the county and benefit all road users.

“The new LEDs have many advantages over the conventional streetlights used currently. They use much less energy improve visibility and can be controlled and monitored centrally which reduces costs. This type of technology has only recently become affordable so we are taking full advantage of lower prices now in order to upgrade lights on our busiest roads.”

The entire project across the county will cost £6.5m and will bring savings of around £660000 every year from the end of 2015 onwards. The system allows for light levels to be reduced at night too so between 11pm to 6am the level of light will be reduced by up to 25 per cent.

Residents might spot grey boxes on a few columns or on roofs. These are base stations which are needed to control the lights.

The work will be carried out by Ringway on behalf of Hertfordshire County Council. In order to minimise disruption on these busy A-roads during the day the work will be done overnight.

Terry added: “Even though work is being carried out at night there may still be minor delays for users due to traffic management. Disruption will be kept to a minimum and we apologise if you do encounter delays to your journey but would ask everyone for their co-operation while the work is in progress.”

Stevenage residents and businesses on the A-roads have been sent leaflets about the work and will be notified if they need to move any vehicles off the road.

For more detailed information and updates on the planned work visit www.ringway.co.uk and click on the ‘Hertfordshire’s A-roads LED upgrade’ link. A map with details of which lights will be changed is available on the Ringway website. For FAQs about the work visit www.hertsdirect.org/streetlights.