LED street lights in Shropshire aims to cut repair backlog

Replacing thousands of street lights in Shropshire with energy efficient LED bulbs should help ease a backlog in repairs, a council says.

Shropshire Council admitted it was behind on repairs due to a large number of traditional sodium lights failing.

About 8,000 remain to be converted into LEDs which the authority said should be completed by November.

The move should result in fewer faulty or failed lights, councillor Richard Marshall said.

"I fully understand the frustrations because I feel it myself," he added.

"Where I live, I've got three street lamps out and they've been out for some time and I feel that frustration."

Shropshire Council has a target to repair faulty street lights within five days but said the high number being reported had pushed repair times to nearly 15 working days in some cases.

In January, it said about 7% of its 20,000 street lights needed repairing or replacing as they were reported as being faulty.

The £6.3m scheme to convert its stock to LEDs began in 2013.

Once completed the authority said it should save £1m annually in lower energy and maintenance costs as well as reducing CO2 emissions.

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