Page 1 of 1

Millions of pounds of our tax waisted!

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2026 8:13 am
by AngryHorse
I’ve touched on this in Dannys sign post post, but am I the only one seeing more and more street lighting switched off now? ;confused
I first saw this in Stafford, where newly installed Thorn Isaro had a yellow sign at the bottom saying ‘Street Lighting not in use’, a few years ago.
Now they have done it to the huge bypass that comes up from Chester to junction 19 of the M6!

Thousands and thousands of 2 year old LED lanterns now having their fuses removed in a bid to fall in line with the net zero bollocks!
What a monumental waist of tax money and I don’t know safety wise, how plunging a very busy bypass into darkness will go down?
I read a story recently about thousands of street lights in Devon now being considered for turn off!
As if this country wasn’t at risk enough with millions of illegals walking about, they’re now going to give them better cover at night for whatever purpose! ;doh

How many of you are seeing this in your county’s, where “energy saving” LEDs are being turned off to save energy? ;wanker

Re: Millions of pounds of our tax waisted!

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2026 10:19 am
by Mrstreetlight
Around my neck of the woods i've not seen any street lighting switched off in neighbouring towns and counties.

MK is even the oppsite recently remodelled two bus stops and added extra columns where there are columns already meters away.

Re: Millions of pounds of our tax waisted!

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2026 12:06 pm
by Ash
Back in the day (2014...15) when my local council was changing the lighting (mostly SON) to LED, they had to play similar games to show that the new lighting saves 80% energy as advertised. The project was loud, with billboards explaining how LEDs save 80% energy, all pretending as if the public spaces lighting was done with GLS

In reality, typically 150W SON were changed to 80W LED, so about 1/2 the energy and the light levels dropped by more than a half

They did compare energy use. They compared it by overnight meter kWh readings (all lighting is group switched and does have meters), so for the LED measurements, they would switch off completely (at the breaker) branch circuits into footpaths which branch from the main road, any amenities, etc and set the remaining dimmable lights to the minimum brightness. I would see areas out in this state for a night or two, and shortly after they would publish measured data, so there is the link

Power was restored after the one or two nights of measurements - It was not left like that

And they did compare light levels in a specific reference location. That place was not relamped in a decade before that and was already a cyclodrome at that point, and tree branches were growing over the lanterns. After the LED changes they cut back lot of those branches everywhere, and then measured the light levels. The measured results suggest that they specifically picked times when some lamps were out in the SON measurement. No energy measurements were done there, as the cycling lamps would give them unfavorably low energy use for the SON install

A couple years after those affairs, when they apparently finished their measurements and proved what they wanted to prove, many of the original (80W) lanterns were replaced with higher power (~120W) lanterns. In a few places 100W floodlights appeared in addition to an existing lantern, to illuminate some path corner that used to be lit well enough with the spill from the original SON lantern. This was especially the case on footpaths that used to be lit with 70W SON/I Gaash "GEC" like lanterns from the 70s/80s (that were mostly 80W mercs originally), and now have had 30W replacement lantern on the original bracket plus the 100W flood

Re: Millions of pounds of our tax waisted!

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2026 12:53 pm
by AngryHorse
We here are more obsessed with carbon neutral than Road traffic safety today!
If you read 60 era lighting catalogues, SO and SOI optics were heavily influenced by traffic safety and accident statistics, (even though there was hardly any road traffic ON the roads back then as there is now)!!!
Street lighting was lorded as making driving safer for both drivers and pedestrians at night, now with too many cars on the road, and too many people driving heavier and faster cars, the attitude in the UK is, we’re using too much energy lighting streets at night, and cars have headlights don’t they?

First it will be major traffic routes, then they will turn their focus on suburbs to put into complete darkness, then it will be energy rationing for private houses until the whole country goes dark at night like North Korea!

Re: Millions of pounds of our tax waisted!

Posted: Sat Aug 01, 2026 12:56 am
by Slyspark
Like most of the bollocks fed to us under the guise of saving the planet. Maybe the best way to do that is for some of these idiots to stop reproducing. Makes no odds how much carbon you cut if we keep doubling the population of the planet. Lets face it, everyone will want the same nice things others have. The more people, the more carbon, no matter how many lamps we extinguish....

Re: Millions of pounds of our tax waisted!

Posted: Sat Aug 01, 2026 5:40 am
by FrontSideBus
I've seen it near me. Including a stretch of motorway that used to have 180w SOX, then the LED's that replaced them were switched off.
They even had to put up a sign put up saying streetlight not in use. If they ever need then on again they will get a shock as being switched off out in the weather kills them!

The whole idea of net zero is complete bullshit. I mean the recent heatwaves that we have had almost took down our electricity grid! All of those windmills they installed sat idle because there was no wind and we have demolished all our coal and gas power stations! We had to emergency import from the continent at 1000% cost!
They haven even had to start installing hundreds of flywheels just to keep the frequency under control which uses even more energy to keep spinning!
They say we can't have aircon running in schools and domestic homes because it uses too much energy.... but they are trying to get everybody to rip out their gas boilers and heat our homes with heat pumps.... which is exactly the same thing as AC!!!
All these solar farms they have installed will do jack shit in winter where it's overcast and there is bugger all daylight amyway!

Re: Millions of pounds of our tax waisted!

Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2026 9:58 am
by Kev
They are building a massive one near me and have made 2 new roads through the fields for a new 33kv under ground cable.
As for saving money Ofcorse we have migrants and pieces of shit floating across the channel in boats to pay for. These luxury hotels cost money you know and with Spain basically being an open border country now more of the earths scum are going to want to come here and just use Spain as a weak pathetic pass through.