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Lighting Authority The Parish Council is the Lighting Authority for the 44 street lights (technically known as a footway lighting system) in the parish. This equates to one street lamp for every 3.8 houses in the village, reflecting the spread-out rural nature of the parish.
The cost of running and maintaining these is the Council’s second biggest annual cost and amounted to £2,382 in 2008-9.
Types of street lights in the parish. The 44 street lights are made up of
23x 80w Mercury Blended Filament Units (MBFU) - these are the older lamps that were installed up until the early 1990s. They are often on concrete posts or mounted on brackets to the power line poles. These will be obsolete from 2015.
19x 35w Sodium Oxide low pressure lamps (SOX) - these are the newer, more energy efficient lamps, often mounted on steel column posts.
1x 55w Sodium Oxide low pressure lamp (SOX) - which protects the footway crossing by the old school house.
1x 70w Sodium Oxide high pressure lamp (SON-T) - which protects the footway crossing on Higham hill.
It is the Council’s policy that as the older Mercury units reach end of life, they are replaced with Sodium lamps, as these are more efficient (200 Lumen/Watt for SOX compared with less than 50 Lumen/Watt for MBFU).
County Cllr Derek Lawson’s empowerment grant 2007. In 2007, NCC provided its Cllrs with access to £10,000 each of grant funding to be used as they wished within their electoral divisions. Cllr Derek Lawson choose to use part of his empowerment grant to cover the costs of replacing of a lamp in Duchy Close, one of the main residential areas of the village. The new SOX lamp and steel column replaced an old MBFU lamp on a concrete post and provides a brighter illumination both to Duchy Close and the footpath leading to Foot Lane, making it safer for residents both young and old.
ENC Community Safety Funding 2008. In 2008, the Council successfully applied to ENC for 2/3rd funding to replace a lamp by the old school house, which illuminates a crossing to the village hall used by everyone walking up from Chelveston. The new SOX lamp replaced an old MBFU lamp and provides a brighter illumination both to crossing and the footpath.
Who reads the meter? No-one! The lamps are connected to what is know as the unmetered supply. This doesn’t mean the electricity is free however. The supplier (E-On) calculates the typical load of each type of lamp for dusk to dawn throughout the year (allowing for seasonal variations) and charges the Council on what the lamps should use. This is another reason why it is important for you to report any lamp that has died, as the power has to be paid for whether it is used or not.
Why SOX? The SOX lamps have an optimum operating temperature of about 260 deg C, emitting a warm yellow light at wavelength 589 nanometres. This close to the peak reception wavelength for the human eye. Since they emit a monochromatic light, it is true that they are poorer for colour rendering, but they are safer in fog, rain and falling snow as the light remains sharp (i.e. not diffused as with MBFU).
Updated 01/02/10
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