Future looks bright as streetlight upgrade begins

A county's streetlights are being brought into the new era with thousands being upgraded with LED bulbs.

Cambridgeshire County Council said it was responsible for more than 53,500 streetlights and about 47,000 of them would have LEDs.

Work to replace all the bulbs would be completed by May 2026.

Liberal Democrat councillor Alex Beckett, chair of the Highways and Transport Committee, said: "The new LED lights represent a huge carbon saving and will help bring us closer to our target of net zero emissions by 2030."

He continued: "So many of us have been replacing our old bulbs at home with more efficient LEDs.

"We've been working towards doing the same with our county council streetlights for a while, bringing them into the 21st Century, and we're now ready to implement those changes.

"LEDs are a particularly good solution, as they combine energy reduction with low maintenance costs, due to their longer average lifetime."

He added that the money saved would be put back into "other vital services like road maintenance".

A spokesperson for the council said softer lighting would be used in rural areas, which was less energy efficient but better for wildlife, including bats.

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