Street lighting consultation open from Thu 6 July

Leicestershire County Council continues to face significant financial challenges with the authority's budget gap set to rise to nearly £90m by 2026. The council is also committed to reducing the impact of climate change.

Through its Medium-Term Financial Strategy, the council has identified potential savings of approximately £500,000 with a street lighting proposal, which also reduces energy consumption by 1.508m kWh and carbon emissions by 315 tonnes a year.

Advances in LED lighting – and their management systems – mean the council has an opportunity to tweak lighting levels during less-busy periods. Currently, all streetlights are lit to various levels across the county, some of which gradually dim through the night.

Following approval at the Cabinet on 23 June 2023, the council is now launching a consultation to seek views on dimming most streetlights in the county to levels of 30 percent from 8pm (down from 50%), depending on the location, and to understand where we should have exceptions to this approach.

The majority of the residential street lighting provision dims to 30% at 10pm and visiting a residential street after 10pm will help give residents an understanding of what this lower lighting level looks like.

To have your say, visit the consultation page. The consultation runs until Thursday 3 August.