Street light neglect

[AutoUnder]

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this but street lighting on the motorways in the north of the UK (where I live) have been neglected very badly, hardly any working and midnight switch offs are just dangerous! I have been on the M3 down south and that is pretty much gleaming at night with LEDs. Why not in the north? Also, I have seen them put up new columns very recently but they are not LED either! Does anyone know why this is?

[brummie_rob]

I guess money comes into it as usual. I notice that paintwork on lamposts is awful now across most areas with non-regular maintenance of it, that is if the council has bothered at all.

I'm not sure the criteria on LED on motorways but when the lamps last year were replaced on the M6 J10-J10A, they replaced all the columns and put SON in them. Yet all other replacement schemes on the M6 around the Midlands have been LED including the latest section between J6 and J7 where some columns fell in the storms of Jan 2015.

[Bryn666]

The decision was taken across most of Area 10 that streetlights were now a maintenance burden and in the main I agree.

However, where lighting remains the actual quality of them is extremely variable. The SOX stretch of the M60 between J24-25 for instance is starting to get failures, and the columns on the M6 between J21A and 30 are between 30 and 40 years old. Several are totally knackered.

I'd be happy if they went for just lighting the junctions on the M6, it doesn't need full blown lighting from J20 through to 32.

[Chris5156]

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this but street lighting on the motorways in the north of the UK (where I live) have been neglected very badly, hardly any working and midnight switch offs are just dangerous! I have been on the M3 down south and that is pretty much gleaming at night with LEDs. Why not in the north? Also, I have seen them put up new columns very recently but they are not LED either! Does anyone know why this is?

I don't think it's a north/south thing. You may see differences between different HE maintenance regions.

The lighting on the M11 around J8 at Stansted is appalling - south of the junction there's a run of perhaps half a mile of lighting on which only a handful of lights have worked for years. Heading southbound the lighting effectively ends before the sliproad has merged in, and then after a very long gap, the very last light works, which is a dazzling flash just before reaching darkness again.

The newish lighting on the north east quadrant of the M25, which went up in widening works only a few years ago, is suffering badly too - a few nights ago I observed maybe one in three overall was out. I'm not sure why that would be. I'd rather have no lights than such a sporadic, distracting mix of working and faulty ones.

[kit]

The newish lighting on the north east quadrant of the M25, which went up in widening works only a few years ago, is suffering badly too - a few nights ago I observed maybe one in three overall was out. I'm not sure why that would be. I'd rather have no lights than such a sporadic, distracting mix of working and faulty ones.

The new lighting around the north west M25 section that has been widened normally has large, random and changing sections unlit. Yellow signs saying "Street lighting under test" have gone up at slip entrances. I don't know what they are testing but I much preferred it pre-lighting.

[Lil]

Come to Area 3 in the south... Supposedly they were replacing the Brighton bypass columns on the A27 in 2016/17 but I'm not holding my breath.

Lack of road markings on the A27 between Arundel and Fontwell, missing signs, a lot of non working lights.... That said, Worthing no longer has concrete columns on the A27 and all of the knackered MA60 columns on Warren Road are now dead.

But there is a lot that doesn't work, even lighting that they put up brand new on the A23 that has never worked.

I spoke to some guy last year about it, my guess is he's done nothing about it, or if he has tried, he has no sway in actually improving matters.

Area 2 on the other hand, seems pretty well maintained.

[sotonsteve]

Places like Chichester and Brighton are in Area 4, and bar a couple of replacement schemes, Area 4 seem to have a history of being rubbish at maintenance. Area 3 on the other hand are quite good and have rolled out LED in a fairly big way, although this includes fitting LED to life-expired 1970s columns too.

[Brenley Corner]

Places like Chichester and Brighton are in Area 4, and bar a couple of replacement schemes, Area 4 seem to have a history of being rubbish at maintenance. Area 3 on the other hand are quite good and have rolled out LED in a fairly big way, although this includes fitting LED to life-expired 1970s columns too.

I travel regularly between Kent and Bournemouth and the difference in the quality of lighting and lighting maintenance in the two areas in quite remarkable. Every time I head South West I have witnessed the LED roll-out in Area 3 and it certainly seems complete and working well.
I come back to Area 4 here in Kent and no lighting works properly - I would estimate that at least 50-75% of lanterns are not working and there seems to be no sense of urgency in getting them repaired - and as for LED roll-out, well there are a couple of slip roads across the area that have been converted but otherwise it seems to be passing them by. I have reported faults to them and they thank me for reporting them but nothing ever gets done.
Some ongoing problems we have that I know about
M2/A2/A299 (Brenley Corner) - Lighting doesn't work at all - 1960s columns with 1980s/1990s lanterns, reported and was told it was a cable fault. Replacement scheme appeared and then disappeared, Ongoing for at least 3 years in this condition.
M20 Maidstone Bypass - Long stretches of distributor road with failed lighting. One column in central reservation has had lantern missing since at least 2004.
M2 - Junctions 2 to 4 - Vast swathes of lanterns not working.
A2 - Brenley Corner to Canterbury - Side verge and slip road lighting not working.

Tony

[Lil]

Ahhh sorry I meant Area 4 (crap) vs Area 3 (seems good) - I'm not really up on all this, faulty memory!

Anyway yes, Area 4 is attrocious, seems like cable faults is blamed on everything, at least that's what this chap blamed everything on last year when I spoke to him.

What I can't get my head around is how they have installed new columns with new lighting on the A23 which never worked and have let it go for years. Meanwhile I'm sure they're busy prepping replacing the lighting at Fontwell as they've not changed it for at least a year (they have replaced the lighting there around 3 or 4 times in the past 10 years....)

I'm afraid I can only come to the conclusion they are pretty shambolic.

A27 - Lewes and beyond : not sure, don't often travel down that way this time of year
A27 - Patcham to Devil's Dyke : been failing for at least 10 years with no maintenance it seems
A27 - Falmer : been failing for years and continues to do so
A27 - Lancing/Sompting : Still concrete columns with a few failing lights
A27 - Worthing : Actually now in good order although bizarrely each three sections were done using different columns and lighting (SON, then LED on standard boring columns, and then LED on curvy 'Fontwell' stainless steel looking columns)
A27 - Arundel : some failing lights
A27 - Chichester Fishbourne Roundabout : largely unlit since removal of what were new columns
A27 - Chichester Portfield Roundabout : patchy lighting

The A23 is a real mess of columns in all sorts of positions and many with failed lighting.

[kit]

as for LED roll-out, well there are a couple of slip roads across the area that have been converted but otherwise it seems to be passing them by.

I really don't understand why this happens. There are a couple of junctions near me where the sliproads have been converted to LED while the mainline - with identical columns - remains SON. One has SON footway lighting so it goes SON > LED > SON. It looks so messy and surely cannot be much more expensive to convert all the lanterns once you have the men onsite anyway.

It does show how directional LED is though, there is almost no overspill onto the footway even though the columns are full height. Good thing there is separate lighting.

[AutoUnder]

Area 10 is really bad with street lighting like I said on the M6, you can also see that some columns have been cut down with a traffic cone on top of what's left of it and they stay like that. They do replace some columns but I think many of these areas are just being lazy.

Lancashire County Council are very good with their street lighting, they are uprgrading to LED and very quickly as well.

[Norfolktolancashire]

Area 10 is really bad with street lighting like I said on the M6, you can also see that some columns have been cut down with a traffic cone on top of what's left of it and they stay like that. They do replace some columns but I think many of these areas are just being lazy.

Lancashire County Council are very good with their street lighting, they are uprgrading to LED and very quickly as well.

I am confused at how certain sections of the M6 between the M58 junction and Preston have the lighting permanently off and yet similar parts don't. I am all for all the lighting to be off apart from junctions, with these being replaced with LED.

The M65 has its lighting removed between Burnley and Blackburn and it's better without it, and cheaper to the tax payer!

[sotonsteve]

With regards Area 4, what about the A27 at Fontwell? Having been relit with new columns and new cabling, there still appear to be significant outages. So much for replacing the lighting to make it more reliable.

And yes, Fishbourne roundabout is an oddity. Why were such new columns felled? And how is it acceptable just to throw up a few signs and let the neglect persist? This is a busy roundabout for goodness sake! Somebody at Highways England needs to be crucified for letting things get so bad.

[Bryn666]

Area 10 is really bad with street lighting like I said on the M6, you can also see that some columns have been cut down with a traffic cone on top of what's left of it and they stay like that. They do replace some columns but I think many of these areas are just being lazy.

Lancashire County Council are very good with their street lighting, they are uprgrading to LED and very quickly as well.

Area 10 is appalling, although the corroded columns on the A56 have all been replaced, barring the important bit at Bent Gate Interchange, where you guessed it, it's still patchy and poorly maintained SOX.

I can only conclude no one at Highways England's MACs grasps lighting.

[darkcape]

Some contractors bidding for MAC's are basically pricing work up that they have no intention of doing should they win the contract so it is no surprise lighting maintenance is shoddy in some areas vs excellent on others.

Area 7 is fairly good, even before it changed to Highways England ASC.

[AutoUnder]

I am confused at how certain sections of the M6 between the M58 junction and Preston have the lighting permanently off and yet similar parts don't. I am all for all the lighting to be off apart from junctions, with these being replaced with LED.

The M65 has its lighting removed between Burnley and Blackburn and it's better without it, and cheaper to the tax payer!

I confused as well. I went down that section the other night, the only signs up were signs saying "Street lighting not in use" in tiny letters. Maybe it's because each column has two bulbs per fitting but some lighting is needed in that area

I personally think motorways are better lit. Driving on a dark motorway makes me feel uneasy.

[kit]

I personally think motorways are better lit. Driving on a dark motorway makes me feel uneasy.

Welcome to SABRE

IMO lighting motorways at night outside of peak times is like leaving all the lights on in your house just in case you want to come down for a glass of water at night. It's wasteful and no-one would do it if it was their own money being spent.

[trencheel303]

Indeed. As long as cats eyes are installed it's fine. You don't even need full beam when it's clear. Makes you feel like a boss when you're at the front of the pack and you can light the entire way in front of you too.

[Johnathan404]

I've noticed I always feel much more alert when driving on the A3 out of London late at night immediately after the streetlighting finishes near Chessington.

Well-maintained streetlighting evidently reduces the risk posed by common hazards, though.

[AutoUnder]

Welcome to SABRE

IMO lighting motorways at night outside of peak times is like leaving all the lights on in your house just in case you want to come down for a glass of water at night. It's wasteful and no-one would do it if it was their own money being spent.

Thank you

Very true, I know motion detectors can be fitted to tell streetlights further down the road that there is a car approaching but it would be expensive, and the lights would have to be LED too.