Street Lights Maintained and Dimming

Please provide the following information about street lights maintained by the council as highway authority.



Question 1.

As at 31 December in each of 2023, 2024 and 2025, please state: (a) the total number of street lights maintained by the council; (b) the number of those lights subject to part-night lighting, meaning they are switched off completely for any part of the night; (c) the number of those lights subject to dimming, meaning they remain lit but operate at reduced brightness for any part of the night.

If figures at 31 December are not held, please use the nearest date for which they are, and state that date.



Question 2.

In each of the calendar years 2023, 2024 and 2025, please state: (a) the number of street light faults reported to the council; (b) the council's target time for repairing a standard street light fault, in working days; (c) the number of faults repaired within that target time.



Question 3.

In each of the financial years 2023/24, 2024/25 and 2025/26, please state (a) the total amount spent by the council on street lighting, and of that total (b) the amount spent on electricity.



Question 4.

For part-night lighting and for dimming, please state the standard hours during which lights are switched off or dimmed (for example, midnight to 5.30am), whether those hours vary by season, and the year in which each policy was introduced.



Question 5.

If readily available, please state the annual saving estimated or achieved from (a) part-night lighting and (b) dimming in the most recent financial year for which a figure exists.

Q1a) 2023 = 80,874, 2024 = 81,229, 2025 = 82,698

Q1b) 2023 = 46,965 , 2024 = 47,197 , 2025 = 47,937

Q1c) 2023 = 19,173, 2024 = 19,212, 2025 = 19,278

Q2a) 2023 = 11,323, 2024 = 9,667, 2025 = 6,526

Q2b) 10 days

Q2c) 2023 = 8,843, 2024 = 8,817, 2025 = 6,389

Q3a) 2023/24 = £3.317m, 2024/25 = £3.600m, 2025/26 = £3.453m

Q3b) 2023/24 = £3.559m, 2024/25 = £2.576m, 2025/26 = £1.929m

Q4) The above was implemented in 2016, albeit dimming had been applied previously in certain locations (since 2009).

Q5) This information is not readily available. There are a multitude of different lantern wattages deployed across the network, operating on different switch regimes as identified above. Owing to the fact the unit price for energy changes on an annual basis and has varied significantly between 2016 and the present day. However, most recent figures estimate that between 2017 (first full year of post-implementation of part-night lighting and LED lantern replacements for town centres/traffic routes) and 2024, over £25m in energy costs had been saved, had there been no dimming, part-night lighting, or equipment upgrades. Since 2017, there have also been a significant amount of LED equipment upgrades, where our current stock is around 99% converted to LED. This would have been less than 30% in 2017 for context. Total kWhr consumption for LCC street lighting in 2015/16 = 22.594m kWhrs Total kWhr consumption for LCC street lighting in 2025/26 = 9.098m kWhrs