Swindon Borough Council has announced plans to dim around 18,000 street lights from this week, to achieve up to 25% savings in electricity.
Street lighting accounted for around 34% of the Council’s electricity use in 2022/23 and the new operational changes will help reduce both the council’s carbon footprint and energy bills.
The move to dim the lighting follows a successful trial conducted in Old Town last Autumn where lights in across a series of streets were reduced.
Street lights will initially operate at their full design output level every evening before this is reduced at 10pm.
'Where possible, the lights will then reduce again at 12am (midnight) and then revert back up to their full design output level at 5am until being switched off,' the council said.
The council added that its total 25% reduction 'will still be within British standards' and that reducing LED light output by 25% to 50% is barely noticeable to the human eye.
It will take approximately two weeks to fully complete the rollout of the changes.
Around 7,000 street lights were excluded from the programme because they illuminate main roads, junctions and pedestrian crossings.
Cllr Chris Watts, Swindon Borough Council’s cabinet member for the environment and transport, said: 'Before rolling out these changes, we wanted to be confident that adjusting the operation of the Borough’s streetlights won’t compromise road safety or residents’ personal safety at night. That’s why we first undertook a trial to test the approach.
'The trials demonstrated that the output of the majority of Swindon’s streetlights can be reduced between 10pm and 5am without a discernible difference to existing lighting levels. A similar approach has already been implemented in many other parts of the country.
'Electricity consumption from street lighting is a significant component of the Council’s carbon footprint, so this change will both contribute to our priority long-term mission to achieve net zero as well as reducing energy bills at a time of pressure on public finances.”
In July 2022, the Council completed the conversion of the majority of its street lights to LED, resulting in a 60% reduction in energy usage.
