A Bright Future for Bedfordshire

The people of Central Bedfordshire will soon benefit from a pioneering and sustainable street lighting solution that will improve road safety and their personal security.

The installation of WRTL Exterior Lighting’s Stela LED street lights has now been completed in East Flitwick with Dunstable due to be finished by the end of the year. These two areas were identified as ideal locations to demonstrate the positive impact of this revolutionary light source. WRTL were approached by Bedfordshire Highways (Amey) and asked to propose an innovative, forward-thinking street lighting solution that would deliver high energy savings for Central Bedfordshire Council while also reducing CO2 emissions to meet Government targets. The challenge to both partners was to minimise cost and disruption by re-using the existing lighting columns and only replacing the luminaires. However, in order to comply with European recommended guidelines standard EN 13201, which identifies required photometric measurements, it is sometimes necessary to re-space columns. This can result in time-consuming and costly removal, replacement and resurfacing work. Fortunately Stela was, once again, able to provide the solution without additional labour and expense. The scheme will help Central Bedfordshire reduce CO2 emissions from their street lights by up to 68% and provide high energy savings without the need to dim or switch off during the night. Stela is manufactured using a large proportion of recycled materials, especially steel and aluminium, making it a sustainable choice. Future maintenance costs will also dramatically decrease as Stela has a 100,000 hour service life with a six year cleaning cycle and virtually no other maintenance requirements. Bedfordshire Highways Network Manager, said: “Stela offered an innovative design for the LED lighting solution, which was aided by working in partnership with WRTL.” The Bedfordshire Highways Electrical and Lighting Manager who designed the lighting scheme, said: “If successful, we will replace Central Bedfordshire’s 21,000 traditional street lights with Stela LED luminaires. Upon completion of this programme we hope to also transfer Bedford Borough Council’s 20,000 units over to Stela LED street lights.” In a recent report to the Central Bedfordshire Council Executive, the Portfolio Holder for Sustainable Communities stated that traditional street lighting is expensive to maintain and environmentally damaging. It was also explained that the Council has a general duty of care to road users and the general public to ensure their safety, therefore a street lighting strategy has been developed which aims to provide the level of service that people expect in a sustainable way. For further information call WRTL on 0121 521 1234 email sales@wrtl.co.uk or visit www.wrtl.co.uk ENDS 408 words

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