Over £1 million has been saved on the cost of replacing every streetlight in Hartlepool with new LED units - freeing up cash to replace almost 3,000 ageing lampposts across the town.
And the news has been welcomed by councillors who say it shows the importance of carrying out work in-house. The scheme to replace all of the town's 13,644 streetlights with modern LED units, which began in July, was expected to cost £5 million but the final bill is now expected to be £3.8 million. No funding was available at the time for the replacement of actual streetlight columns but the saving will now used by the Council to replace 2,943 columns that are over 30-years-old. Councillor Marjorie James, Chair of the Neighbourhood Services Committee, said: "This saving has only come about as a result of a very effective procurement exercise carried out by Council officers which enabled us to buy the new LED lighting units for £800,000 less than originally estimated. "And other efficiencies made by our in-house installation team have taken the total saving to £1.2 million. "It should be noted that when informal discussions took place with potential private sectors providers their indicative price for a full streetlight replacement scheme was £6.8 million. "I'm delighted that we ultimately decided to keep the work in-house and these figures prove that decision was correct. "I would like to congratulate all Council officers involved in the LED replacement scheme for their hard work in achieving such a successful outcome and it highlights the importance of carrying out such work in-house. "As a result, we are now in a position to make a substantial investment in tackling the deteriorating condition of streetlight columns in various parts of the town -work for which we had not been able to previously identify funding." The replacement of the streetlight columns will run alongside the on-going LED replacement scheme and is due to be completed by December next year.Contact:
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Steve Hilton, Public Relations Officer - Hartlepool Borough Council
+44-01429-284065
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