Shortest/longest sleeving on streetlights

[autosignguy]

Having had a look round recently, I've noticed Bootle has lost most of its ElecoSlim columns which had (if I'm right) GEC lanterns to be replaced with WRTL 2600 side-entry on sleeved columns.
link.
However, I am surprised to see that some old lanterns still survive:
here
and here
Southport has gone an entirely different route - with complete sleeving for its streetlights in some parts, unlike the rest of Sefton!
full sleeving
and
sleeving is stubbier and shorter - similar to Huyton's except that Huyton's has concrete at bottom of post.
In Romford, Essex, they've also done sleeving - but with Thorn Beta 2 or 5's as seen here - and on stubbier ones than above:
link

What's your local area like in terms of this? - my area has virtually no sleeving used at all, bizarrely!

[Truvelo]

These are some of the biggest that I know of. Notice how there's an extra piece for support on the corner of the bracket. These have been there for as long as I can remember since the early 80's.

[autosignguy]

There are some WRTL 2600 sleeved lanterns around Sandwell, IIRC.

[Truvelo]

There are some WRTL 2600 sleeved lanterns around Sandwell, IIRC.

2600's are mainly found in Dudley. There's a sleeved one on the right in this picture. There's also a doctored one in your avatar

[autosignguy]

The one in the background was what I meant!

[M19]

I remember when sleeving was around Leeds like a rash in the 1990s. At the time the City Council and it seems, the rest of West Yorkshire had a bodge-it and make do approach to roads and street furniture. The sleeving in most cases was really shoddy, with mixed lengths used on lamps on the same street, whilst uising different types of lights, or repairing the housing of existing lights, simply by wrapping insulation tape round them.

Leeds and the rest of West Yorkshire soon got a kind of a pick n' mix of streetlighting which really did make the area look quite backward. Whilst it deserved not to get that reputation it was really bad, I think for its image. I think it has improved now with a lot of this all being replaced

It seems that other areas also suffered from the "West Yorkshire Look". I know Sunderland was one, but PFI has dealt with that.

[Bryn666]

Funnily enough, sleeving around other parts of W Yorks seems to have been done much more carefully.

The long lengths of road with Stanton concrete columns was always a signature of West Yorkshire - and the Thorn Alpha 8.

[autosignguy]

Funnily enough, sleeving around other parts of W Yorks seems to have been done much more carefully.

The long lengths of road with Stanton concrete columns was always a signature of West Yorkshire - and the Thorn Alpha 8.

Could they ever recreate those Stanton concrete brackets, but with glass-reinforced plastic and painted in the colour of concrete (to give the effect they look like it, "mock concrete", or "moncrete" as I dubbed it)?

It would be an alternative to sleeving possibly.

[Bryn666]

It'd be cheaper to just sleeve, truth be told.

[autosignguy]

It'd be cheaper to just sleeve, truth be told.

True, but I only thought from street aesthetics perspectives, really...
I suppose a "look" for a street/road is a design consideration, but I must have made a mistake there!

[Bryn666]

Aesthetics used to come into play but these days it's all down to cost. A bracket costs anything up to £300 - a column is about £500. This is why so many post-tops exist.

Sleeving is really quite cheap compared to replacing the column altogether - however, concrete lighting stock is rapidly falling out of favour as it ages badly, and if you crash into it, you are likely to die horribly.

I prefer steel columns with arched brackets but they're not cheap.

[Dan123]

There's a few big sleeves outside Whiston Hospital. Not sure if these are still around with the recent building work on the hospital going on though?