How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

[Reading]

Trouble with that can be (or at least around here is) the new lamps are so tightly focused that when riding a motorcycle down the road you are flicking in and out of pools of lights and stips of dark - the light cone does not match the post spacing

[WHBM]

It also means that the approach to our front door, previously well lit from the spillover, is now notably dark.

[Fenlander]

Ours has gone the other way, the shadow cast by the pole for the old lamp covered our frontage. The new LED head is much wider than the pole so there no shadow, as a result we haven't needed the light by the front door on this winter.

[J--M--B]

I suspect it will be many years but perhaps the question should be how long will it before some of the older types are retained for 'heritage' reasons rather like the gas lamps in some places?

[Gareth]

I saw an SOX bulb replacement in my area the other day. How come councils will replace some with an identical bulb yet replace the lantern on others?

They're only going to change the lantern if there's either a mass replacement scheme (i.e. wholesale conversions from SOX to LED) or if the fixture is faulty or damaged. Otherwise, if the bulb goes in a SOX lantern, why wouldn't you just replace the bulb? When a bulb goes in your house, you don't replace the fixture.

[Brenley Corner]

It also means that the approach to our front door, previously well lit from the spillover, is now notably dark.

The lanterns chosen by Kent for our area also only focus light downwards and our entire estate has changed outlook since our Vectras were swapped for Phosco P852s on one day in January. Kent quite clearly stated that lighting was provided for the road and pavements and anything else was incidental so would not be recreated; the houses and gardens are now dark whilst the road is fairly well lit.

[Fenlander]

Otherwise, if the bulb goes in a SOX lantern, why wouldn't you just replace the bulb? When a bulb goes in your house, you don't replace the fixture.

I did in our last house, it was newbuild and suffered from BC3 fittings, it was cheaper to fit a new pendant and standard fitting bulb ( in my case LED) than it was to source an expensive BC3 equipped bulb. http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2 ... 3-fitting/

[Reading]

I recently bought some LED ceiling lights that are guaranteed for 10 years and designed for you to replace the fixture rather than bulb in case of failure

[haymansafc]

There's currently a wholesale programme of changing lanterns on residential streets here in Ellesmere Port to LED and it's seen a vast culling of Thorn Beta 5's, WRTL 2600's and even a few WRTL arcs that are barely six years old. There have been no column replacements – just the lanterns.

As a result, we still have plenty of concrete columns which are now sporting brand new LED lanterns! The ones which are side-entry on the original concrete brackets look particularly odd…

However, Beta 5's still exist if they're on their original top-entry brackets. There is only one that survives on our street…and that happens to be outside our house. Yes… Whilst the rest of the street now has LED lanterns, there's a nice patch of warm SOX glow coming from the sole surviving top entry Beta 5!

I'm not complaining to the council for a few reasons. Firstly, I have no issue with SOX lighting and I actually find this easier on my own eyes at night than SON or the harshness of LED. Secondly, the old Beta 5 does a better job at dispersing light in the dark – which is it's job. Some people describe this as 'light pollution'. Thirdly, the rest of the street is now notably darker at night – accept for when you're standing underneath the columns themselves – by which time you’ll probably need sunglasses. Fourthly, the concrete column itself is partly in our front garden wall and it's removal would probably mean us having to buy at least a couple of bricks to fill in the gap. It's basically been left as it is because the new LED lights are side entry or post top. The original concrete bracket would need removing and the column sleeving for any LED installation to take place.

[Gareth]

Otherwise, if the bulb goes in a SOX lantern, why wouldn't you just replace the bulb? When a bulb goes in your house, you don't replace the fixture.

I did in our last house, it was newbuild and suffered from BC3 fittings, it was cheaper to fit a new pendant and standard fitting bulb ( in my case LED) than it was to source an expensive BC3 equipped bulb. http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2 ... 3-fitting/

That's insane. Those BC3 fittings simply shouldn't be a thing.

[Sou'wester]

Otherwise, if the bulb goes in a SOX lantern, why wouldn't you just replace the bulb? When a bulb goes in your house, you don't replace the fixture.

I did in our last house, it was newbuild and suffered from BC3 fittings, it was cheaper to fit a new pendant and standard fitting bulb ( in my case LED) than it was to source an expensive BC3 equipped bulb. http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2 ... 3-fitting/

That's insane. Those BC3 fittings simply shouldn't be a thing.

It's a joke. I live in a new build also and have had to change all of my light fittings.

[Glenn A]

One oddity I've seen locally is an iron street light from the twenties with a new lantern and LED light fitted. It's possible the council wanted to save this type of street light, which was common in Whitehaven until the eighties, as only a few remain and they add to the feel of an area.

[Beardy5632]

I've noticed over the past few weeks that the lights on the M4 around Newport are slowly being replaced. At first I only thought it was only between junctions 24 and 29 that was being done but today they'd started stretching back east of junction 24.

With regards to some of the designs of them though, some of the new ones around Chepstow and Caldicot remind me a bit of the sort of lights you'd see on the front on someone's house.
Link.

[scott125]

Seems that Glasgow is pushing on with more LED replacements and another new design of LED .

[Ben302]

Medway seem to be lagging a bit with LED installations after the spurt of replacing a lot of mainline SOX with WRTL Lumas. Any LED's are introduced as casual replacements only when the lantern itself is life expired or failed, no mass rollout unlike neighbouring Kent. After briefly using Urbis Sapphire in 8 and 16 LED forms they used Terraled lanterns and now are using ASD Highway Diamonds which have a warmer output closer to SON than the cold white of the Urbis and Terraled. Otherwise a failed bulb regardless of it being SOX or SON is being replaced with a CFL

[Jonathan24]

TNI switched over to using LED from 2015, although casual replacements are 100% like for like, sodium -> sodium or LED -> LED. That way you'll often get a mixture of SOX and SON in the same street, but LED lit streets will be exclusively that. Interestingly in Ballymena there are a few areas done with Hardie 'Night Sight' lanterns, which look like a traditional 35W SOX, but give out white light.

I had also previously noticed that casual replacements were like for like however, just in the last couple of days, the light below was replaced with a LED lantern, but the rest of the street are still sodium lanterns:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.55511 ... 56!6m1!1e1

I had also previously noticed that where mainline SOX lanterns failed, they were replaced with SON (even for lamp failures) however a new batch of lamps now seems to have been sourced and SOX failures are now being relamped. Accordingly, the street linked below is now a whole mixture of SOX and SON!

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.55483 ... 56!6m1!1e1

Interesting, I walked past the one in Windermere on Sunday and it wasn't done then. Post tops are a certainly rareity in South Belfast. And the Cairnshill Road is just a mess, as is the Saintfield Road, with a mish-mash of SOX and SON.

I was astonished to see a complete new installation of SOX lanterns as late as November 2015 here:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.43655 ... 312!8i6656

Interestingly, the Cairnshill road is now even more of a mess as, not content with randomly replacing SOX with SON (but relamping other SOX), some SOX is now being replaced with LED (but not consistently, as SON is still being fitted too!)

So it's now SOX, SON and LED all on the same short stretch of road...it's quite distracting seeing all the different colours.

[toainsully]

Cardiff is undergoing LED placements, mainly on specific roads such as A4232. I mean, it's not the same without the old streetlights anymore.

[ilsonbhoy]

Solihull Council seem to be replacing SON at quite the rate now. Lots of the main routes between Solihull and Birmingham are now LED and they have even started to branch out on the none classified routes from the town centre. Along with the mass change from the old MFI lamps on residential streets, a good percentage is LED.

Stoke Council meanwhile voted to change to LED in there recent council meeting and that is despite the PFI changing from mostly SOX to SON between 2007-2010.

Stoke has some of the best HID lighting in the country why change when such a long residual life still left. Wait and let LED mature and develop still major issues with it

[sotonsteve]

The early street lighting PFIs went on an energy binge, ramping up lighting levels and power consumption to unprecedented levels which were unaffordable. So, faced with unaffordable energy bills, councils in early street lighting PFIs are coughing up to go LED to cut down on their bills. Let's face it, going from SON to LED will result in energy bills dropping by around 70%, and that's significant.

[Patrick Harper]

My only real gripe with some of the roll-out schemes, is that they aren't tailored to allow for last gen SOX, HID and CFL equipment, the least difficult to maintain compared to their predecessors, to last longer in the hopes of reaching their life expectancy. In my county (Herts) there are situations where just a year before the LED upgrade began, fresh lighting was provided to coincide with a new development on a main road, only for the lanterns to get dumped just a year later. Even some of the pre-programme LED experiments bit the dust far, far too early.

Now, you could make the argument that energy and maintenance savings have to come first, there simply isn't the time to be worrying about wastage of nearly new equipment. But the switchover isn't happening overnight, it's taken two and a half years so far with plenty more years to come, the programme could have been designed from the start to replace older equipment first and newer equipment last, and it wouldn't have cost a penny more. As it is now, it is completely incoherent and our streets are more of a patchwork than they have ever been.