LED street lighting contract awarded

KCC has awarded the £40 million contract for converting its 118,000 street lights to Light Emitting Diode (LED) technology to Bouygues Energies and Services. The contract award represents another step towards delivering major savings on the County Council's £9.2 million annual spend in street lighting.

The conversion of street lights in residential areas to LED should begin as soon as March. The entire conversion project should be completed in a little over three years, though the residential areas should be complete much sooner than that. It had originally appeared likely that areas that had been the first to be moved to part-night lighting (such as Sevenoaks District) would be the first in line for LED. This now appears less likely, but in any case LED should reach Sevenoaks, including Darent Valley, soon.

The adoption of LED, and the annual savings of up to £5.2 million that it will deliver, will provide the opportunity to revisit the part-night lighting policy. The results of a consultation on a new policy will be discussed at a KCC committee meeting in February.