Shrewsbury to get LED street lights in £93,000 project

Shrewsbury Town Council will be going out to tender for a contract to replace the bulbs used in its footpath lighting across the town.

It comes after it was revealed that the council is looking at new lighting for the Quarry, to be put up along Victoria Avenue, which runs along the riverside.

Council leader Alan Mosley said that the replacement lighting would be cheaper for the council in the long run.

He said: “We have decided to go out to tender on replacing all footpath lighting on a three year period.

“We will change them to LEDs. We expect this will result in better lighting that is cheaper to operate and will have much higher reliability and will require less maintenance.

“They will also satisfy environmental criteria for the future.”

A report considered by Shrewsbury Town Council says that the authority will have to replace 177 lamps by April 2020 because the only supplier of the bulbs in the world is due to stop production.

As a result the council says wholesale placement with LED bulbs would require a budget of £93,200.

Earlier this week Councillor Mosley confirmed the council plans to look at the lighting around the riverside path in the Quarry.

He said the authority had looked at installing lights which would run off mains electricity but that the project would have been too costly because of resurfacing work that would have been required. The project could have cost around £500,000.

Instead council officers are investigating types of solar-powered lights to use along the path.

Replacement uplighters for Gloucester Avenue in the park have also been approved by the council.

Councillor Mosley said: “We have got to replace the uplighters on Gloucester Avenue, that is something we are going ahead with. The other is we want to look at the potential for lighting Victoria Avenue.”

“Unfortunately for engineering reasons putting in full blown lighting would be prohibitively expensive so we are going to look at the potential of putting in solar powered lighting.

“We are looking at a number of proposals, how reliable they are and the cost of installing them.

“We hope we will be able to find a solution in that direction.”