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[andy]

This is not personal B_S, so please don't take it that way, but these figures are utter tripe from beginning to end.

agree with that. £5K/year is way OTT for lights. columns last years and only replaced when necessary. every lights doesnt get knocked down at last once a year. (altho havin said that, you should see the price of some 'designer' type lights, where you open the door at the bottom and use a socket/ratchet to lower the light. stupidly expensive)

 

[empip]

Now let's get some real data.
Leeds City Council Lighting
Cannot see how this can be that much different than other places.

Street lighting costs everyone who lives in Leeds £1.66 a year.
There are about 89,000 street lights and 30,000 bollards and signs in Leeds.
The electricity bill costs £1.9 million each year.
We spend £1.6 million on maintenance.
We need £0.4 million because of vandalism and accident damage.
We will try to get repair costs from anyone who has damaged a street lamp.

So we are talking £15.96 per annum average elec. cost per item.
Average maintenance cost £13.44 per item.
Average cost due to vandalism and accidents £3.36 per item.
So overall average cost per item = £32.76 making the total of £3.9 million for the 119000 street lights, bollards and signage.
£1.66 per person per annum is really small beer...

Loads more data :- Googled results

 

[empip]

Now let's get some real data.
Leeds City Council Lighting
Cannot see how this can be that much different than other places.

Street lighting costs everyone who lives in Leeds £1.66 a year.
There are about 89,000 street lights and 30,000 bollards and signs in Leeds.
The electricity bill costs £1.9 million each year.
We spend £1.6 million on maintenance.
We need £0.4 million because of vandalism and accident damage.
We will try to get repair costs from anyone who has damaged a street lamp.

So we are talking £15.96 per annum average elec. cost per item.
Average maintenance cost £13.44 per item.
Average cost due to vandalism and accidents £3.36 per item.
So overall average cost per item = £32.76 making the total of £3.9 million for the 119000 street lights, bollards and signage.
£1.66 per person per annum is really small beer...
Which compares readily with

6. What is the cost of operating a streetlight?

The lamps used in streetlights vary in both size and consumption (typically between 35 and 250 Watts) depending upon whether they are lighting a residential area, main road or a town centre. Therefore, there can be no one answer to this question. The average cost of operating a streetlight inclusive of energy costs, lamp replacement and maintenance is calculated as between £30 and £50 per annum, less than £1 per week. The forthcoming Best Value Indicator required by Government should give a better indication of the cost in future years. See also answer to Question 7.

7. How much energy does a streetlight use?

The energy consumption of a streetlight is affected primarily by the wattage of the lamp, see Question 6 and by the location of the streetlight in the country, which determines the number of hours of operation each night. It is generally assumed that the average wattage of a streetlight is about 80 watts. Assuming an average number of hours that the streetlight is on per annum as 4,100 then the amount of energy consumed by an average streetlight over one year will be 328 units of electricity, approximately 4.5 pence per night or £16 per annum. See also answer to 6.

8. How many streetlights are there in the Country?

The Institution of Lighting Engineers in its leaflet 'Protecting a Vital Asset' determined that there were approximately 6.2 million lighting columns in public ownership.

Loads more data :- Googled results

6.2 million lighting columns at £33 per annum = £204.6 million per annum or £3.41 approx for every man woman and child throughout the land .. What a bargain to light the way !!

 

[Stoday]

That's more like it empip. But it's a bit below average.

City lighting would exclude motorway and main "A" roads which are national highways. So city would have lamps averageing 100W or so - that fits in with the electricity cost per year.

Don't forget, street lighting is always on peak, although that's somewhat counter-intuitive. So higher price. Think about it.

 

[Softus]

...£1.66 per person per annum is really small beer...

Coincidentally, £1.66 would actually buy you a small beer

 

[empip]

That's more like it empip. But it's a bit below average.

City lighting would exclude motorway and main "A" roads which are national highways. So city would have lamps averageing 100W or so - that fits in with the electricity cost per year.

Don't forget, street lighting is always on peak, although that's somewhat counter-intuitive. So higher price. Think about it.

Sorry ... are you questioning the official figures given above? I have thought just a little about it ... and decided the Instute of Lighting Engineers just may have some data worth reading ... Councils also.
I am gonna stick with those figures ... I bet they are not far away.

From another source .... LINK
[code:1]
Number of Lighting Units in the United Kingdom
England
Counties 2,524,323
Metropolitan Borough 1,552,827
London Borough 665,983
Unitaries 1,098,456
Highway Agency/TfL 211,658
Total in England 6,053,247
Scotland 885,481
Wales 443,907
Northern Ireland 257,592
==================================
Total in UK 7,653,564
[/code:1]

 

[andy]

some dual carriageways and other major roads are not maintained by local councils so i doubt they would be included in the figures for leeds council. expect the average of 80W per light to rise, since pretty much every 55W SOX light is changed for a 100W SON

 

[empip]

from the figures gleaned, 211,658 lamps maintained by highway authority of 6,053,247 total items, that being just 3.49% of the total .. leave out vandalism and accident costs for the motorways, and add that to electricity costs and I still reckon I am close to the ££.
Look at it like this, if 3.5% of the units are more costly on electricity let us say treble the average for those items.
3.5% of 6.2 million units = 211000 @ my £15.96 av elec cost = £3.37 million if we treble that cost, we add 3.37*2=£6.74 million to total bill
making £204.6 million up to £211.34 million an increase of 3.02%
Which now becomes approx £3.52 instead of £3.41 I previously suggested, per person per annum .. cheap as chips. We all benefit from the lighting, and for once we can see that. if we 'do away' with it the money will disappear into the system and we will see sfa.

 

[andy]

will disappear into the system and we will see sfa.

bit like all other money that goes into it

 

[empip]

Just out of interest... Income tax alone, UK revenue for the year approx £125,000,000,000 or £2,400,000,000 per wk - £342,466,000 per DAY.
So the 'street lighting' cost at say £212,000,000 for the year, amounts to just 8.8% of 1 week's revenue from income tax alone
and 0.17% of the year's revenue.
!! This ignores ALL other taxes.... It is almost too enormous to comprehend.

 

[Big_Spark]

Softus, and everyone else for that matter..

I did not say they were MY figures, they were figures supplied following requests to Local Authorities etc etc about 4 years ago for a project a Consultancy was undertaking on behalf of a lighting manufacturer.

Why the councils stated they included every possible thing they could, god only knows, but they are the figures that we were given.

Personally, and this was the impression of the team at the time, was that they tended to pad out the figures in order to get more money from local taxes and central government. I would think that the vast majority don't actually spend anything like they claim on street lights..but the fact is this WAS what they claimed they did. I am sure the bulk of the money they claimed was spent on silly project like Gay rights centres etc etc..the simple fact is they claimed it so it was a real cost from the projects perspective.

Now whether that formula has changed,I dare say different councils pad it differently etc, but we simply had to work with the figures given.

The simple fact is that if the street lights were not used, then this money would have no justification being spent, there is no maintenance or replacement required for a non-functioning post, as a result a LOT of the money claimed for this task could not be then quietly diverted to other areas..they would either have to come clean or stop the cash flow.

Lets face facts, Local Authorities and Central Governemt waste tens of billions annually on stupid crap that no-one wants or needs, the figres for the street lamps are smply an example of how they screw their calculation I dare say.

 

[Big_Spark]

I have been readin the link that empip posted above for the Lighting Engineers, and found something that may explain why certain local authorities may be excessivly claiming more that they spend..The really important statement I have highlighted.

Government cut backs continue. In a White Paper issued in August 1998, the Government introduced its transport plans for the future. Whilst it announced increases in spending over the next 3 years of £700 million, the highway electrical industry will see only a small proportion of this, which will not go far enough to arrest the continuing deterioration of the highway electrical infrastructure.

In a survey carried out in 1998 by the ILE, LIF, LCMA and ASLEC, local authorities revealed that there is an urgent need to replace almost 11% of their stock of lighting columns. The estimated cost for this work is in the region of £500 million. This survey also revealed that over the next 10 years, 3 million lighting columns will be beyond their design life of 25 years. In order to replace these columns on a 10 year rolling programme, over £200 million a year will be required. Current expenditure on the replacement of the lighting infrastructure is estimated to be £50 million.

 

[empip]