Susan van de Ven

Liberal Democrat Councillor for Bassingbourn, Litlington, Melbourn, Meldreth and Whaddon Learn more

Street lighting update

by Susan van de Ven on 30 January, 2013

The County Council is upgrading its street lights by replacing older columns with newer ones and installing new lanterns. As part of this process the council is also reducing its entire network of street lights by approximately 11% in order to run lighting more efficiently and cheaply in the future. Work has been contracted out to Balfour Beatty and has been taking place in Melbourn and Meldreth since December. Foxton, Shepreth, Heydon and the Chishills are on the schedule for late 2014. A great number of queries have come forward in Melbourn and Meldreth relating to specific locations, and also to poor communication by Balfour Beatty.

In planning how to allocate new lighting, routes have been divided up into through traffic routes, which are to receive replacement lights but in new evenly divided locations, and residential roads where old lights that are ‘not deemed to comply’ with new standards are removed and not necessarily replaced. This has created some concern in areas felt to be inadequately lit, and areas where columns have been situated in unfortunate locations.

Traffic routes, once installed and connected to the network, will be dimmed in two stages, by 20% from 8pm until midnight and and then a further 20% until 6am. Residential roads will be dimmed by 40% from 10pm till 6am. This process has been introduced as an energy savings exercise and to reduce the brightness of the lights in off-peak periods.

To make matters confusing, not all lights are County Council owned. For example, lights in North End Meldreth are South Cambs owned and there are no plans yet to replace them.

As your councillors, we are liaising with both Balfour Beatty and the County Council to try and help resolve individual case work. The best thing to do if you have a complaint is to use the contact details on the advance communication you should have received from Balfour Beatty, because they are being paid (by us!) to do this. However please also feel free to copy us in, or ask for our help if you are having difficulties.

   1 Comment

One Response

  1. M.C.Sherwen says:

    Words fail me, a shambles, Melbourn’s project is a joke.
    I see BB’s workforce about once a week, there is no continuity of work, protective fences and pavement covers are unfixed and I have personally replaced them following the recent winds when they have blown into the road or moved leaving gaps in the pavements.
    They wouldn’t get anymore work from me were it my responsibility.

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