Non-motoring > Who foots the bill for street lighting? Miscellaneous
Thread Author: BobbyG Replies: 13
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New Mon 12 Sep 11 20:06 
 Who foots the bill for street lighting? - BobbyG
To answer my own question I assume it is the local Council?
However, how is this calculated? Are there meters on every corner?

Similarly, how does it work for motorways?
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New Mon 12 Sep 11 20:09 
 Who foots the bill for street lighting? - R.P.
There was a polly filler bit on the local news a couple of months ago when a street light in Conwy had been left on 24/7 for months. The report suggested that this had no effect on the bill as the Council as they pay a fixed amount to the provider calculated over the year...un-metered apparently.

Bingo - BBC search engine scored a hit !

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-13388474
Last edited by: R.P. on Mon 12 Sep 11 at 20:11
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New Mon 12 Sep 11 20:16 
 Who foots the bill for street lighting? - sooty123
Works that way with a lot of big users. The company will make an estimate by recording usage over x during a year and work out the bill from that. Lots of places don't have actual meters.
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New Mon 12 Sep 11 20:27 
 Who foots the bill for street lighting? - Iffy
Years ago, I was told supplying electricity overnight costs the power company very little, because the power stations run more efficiently if they are generating around the clock.

Not sure if that was true then, or if it remains true now.

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New Mon 12 Sep 11 20:33 
 Who foots the bill for street lighting? - sooty123
More the cost of winding it up and down, so to speak, much better to keep it within a band, rather than flat out or off. So they offer really cheap rates, picked up by heavy users, to keep the plants online. I think it takes about 3 days to bring them online from cold.
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New Mon 12 Sep 11 20:43 
 Who foots the bill for street lighting? - mikeyb
Wasnt that the point of economy seven - to get us all using it during the low demand periods to even out use
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New Mon 12 Sep 11 22:16 
 Who foots the bill for street lighting? - Alastairw
Every so often you will see tender notices in the papers to supply x units of un metered off peak juice to ABC Borough Council for use in street lights. Sometimes includes maintenance/bulb changes.

One of my neighbours wired his house into the nearest lamp-post to supply his, erm, herb growing activities. No one knew until the police helicopter spotted the heat on its infra red camera one night last winter.
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New Tue 13 Sep 11 00:48 
 Who foots the bill for street lighting? - bathtub tom
Brings back memories of Summer holidays.

I lived in a cul-de-sac that had a small roundabout at its hammerhead end. It had a street lamp in the middle. We got together with all our railway track and put a line round the the kerbstones. Erm, someone prised the cover off the streetlamp in the middle and connected the mains to a transformer so we could run our trains around.

IIRC the adults were suitably impressed. We should've got our ears clipped.
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New Mon 12 Sep 11 22:35 
 Who foots the bill for street lighting? - Dave_
>> they pay a fixed amount to the provider calculated over the year...un-metered apparently

I have a vague figure in my head from days long past, that the cost to the council of the electricity to run a street-light is only 1/9th the cost for you and I to run an identical light.

I remember from my teenage years, the local council used to send two guys in a Bedford Rascal pickup around the footpaths and parks in the dark to check the street-lights' operation and note down the duff ones for repair the following day. These days it seems they only offer a reactive service when someone complains about a light out, although it is a 24-hour service. I rang the reporting number on a nearby unlit post on my way back from a fireworks display last year and spoke to the actual guy with the boom lift van and the box of bulbs!
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi on Mon 12 Sep 11 at 22:40
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New Mon 12 Sep 11 23:04 
 Who foots the bill for street lighting? - RattleandSmoke
Does anybody have any actual figures of how much any council pays to light say x amount of street lamps?

Just waiting for redcrooks at my local council to start saying due to the torry cutbacks they cannot light the roads any more.
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New Mon 12 Sep 11 23:21 
 Who foots the bill for street lighting? - rtj70
>> torry

Tory? I thought the MP covering Withington and Chorlton area was John Leech... and he's a lib dem MP. I'd have thought the council was also liberal due to supporters/voters.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Mon 12 Sep 11 at 23:22
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New Mon 12 Sep 11 23:38 
 Who foots the bill for street lighting? - RattleandSmoke
Mostly red now, the dems took a battering at the local elections this year due to their tie up with the blues and John Leach himself as been unusually quite. A good MP though and vital to Manchester as would be far too much labour otherwise.

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New Tue 13 Sep 11 00:05 
 Who foots the bill for street lighting? - Ted

Leech only has a bit of Chorlton, including Chorltonville. The rest of us are now in Gorton and have Gerald Kaufman as MP.

I e-mailed Leech over one of his constituents, a pensioner, who had been caught in the local private parking scam. He hadn't a clue and I had to give him chapter and verse on the law. The victim didn't pay up. My neighbour got one as well just dropping her son off. She was a bit dubious about not paying but she sat on it until it got to nearly £300 before fizzling out !

Ted
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New Tue 13 Sep 11 10:02 
 Who foots the bill for street lighting? - Tigger
We've just had all the lights in our part of the country replaced.

Each new lamp is controlled by computer which means street lighting can be increased when it is needed and reduced when it is not - for example, as the sun begins to rise in the morning or sets at night at different times of the year.

They also dim the lights after about 1am, when fewer people are around.
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