€4.5m to be spent on upgrade of public lighting to LEDs

Westmeath County Council has to spend €4.5m to upgrade the county’s public lighting system and make it more energy efficient, councillors were told at the March meeting.

As part of local authorities’ legal commitment to reduce carbon emissions, over the next two to three years Westmeath has to upgrade the public lighting across the county. The work will be carried out by a contractor who will have responsibility for upgrading the network here and other local authorities in the midlands and east.

Director of services Barry Kehoe told councillors that 1,500 of the county’s 11,000 public lights have been fitted with LED bulbs, which use half the energy of older bulbs. He said at present public lighting accounts for 67% of the council’s energy consumption.

In addition to installing LED lanterns, which cost €350 each, much of the infrastructure in the system will have to be replaced, although work on that will be after the lights are upgraded.

While the initial investment is significant, Mr Kehoe says it will be off set by estimated savings of €6.5m over 20 years.

The government is to provide €500,000 of the €4.5m needed though its climate action fund.

One of the challenges is that most of public lights use bulbs that are no longer in production. Mr Kehoe said the council is planning to purchase 2,000 bulbs to cover the next two years and is hopeful a supplier will be sourced.

The news that such a significant sum has to be invested in the lighting was met with a mixed responses from councillors, many of who complained about the time it took to get lights replaced and the council’s system for prioritising repairs (see left).

Cllr Michael O’Brien saw the benefits of the investment as it will lead to future savings; however, he has also found it “hard” to get new lighting installed in villages since he became a councillor in 2014.

Cllr Johnnie Penrose noted that while the cost and task is “daunting”, when the work is done it will be a “huge improvement”. Cllr Paul Hogan described the update given by Mr Kehoe as “both good news and bad news”.

Cllr Una D’Arcy was “shocked at how much is spent on lighting”, and it was “positive” switching to “environmentally friendly” bulbs.