Birmingham Housing Lighting Bright Future

A four-year project to bring energy efficient LED streetlights to Birmingham’s Housing amenity lighting has reached its first major milestone, after year one works have been successfully completed by Nottingham-based civil and electrical engineering firm McCann, in April 2020.

McCann were awarded the non-PFI housing lighting maintenance upgrade project by Birmingham City Council in 2019, and it will see an investment of £3.8 million to upgrade and maintain 3,000 existing lighting units with modern LED lighting technology and associated infrastructure. Work on this project started on April 1^st, 2019 and has an expected completion date of March 31^st, 2023.

McCann have already completed several LED lighting schemes throughout England, including, Camden, Hillingdon and the Mall, and Constitution Hill in London. Along with this they have also done upgrades on part of the M62 at J22-J25 in collaboration with Highways England.

McCann are also part of the way through sizeable LED lighting contracts in Calderdale, North Yorkshire, and along with this, have projects in North and North East Lincolnshire.

The cutting-edge lighting technology which is being installed in Birmingham will bring benefits to both City residents and the local authority, which Paul Laythorpe. Highways Electrical Asset Manager for Birmingham City Council explains: “As with many local authorities across the country, we see the benefits of making a significant financial investment to bring the latest street lighting technology to our roads. Replacing assets that are beyond their useful life with energy efficient equivalents is not only cost effective for us, but also for our residents.

“Once complete, our non-PFI housing lighting scheme will reduce the electricity associated with Housing street lighting by 50% and bring Birmingham City Council’s annual spend on Housing street lighting down by £75k. It will also reduce light pollution and create a much safer environment for road users and pedestrians.”

The four-year contract also includes the collation and verification of existing Housing lighting asset data using mobile technology and GIS mapping.

Tiz Gibson, Local Authority Business Director for McCann, is delighted with the progress so far and sees this as another landmark project for the company to be involved with as it looks to remain at the forefront of LED lighting services.

“I think this project, alongside those in London, North Yorkshire and both North and North East Lincolnshire, demonstrates how far we’ve come in recent years – gaining all the necessary accreditations to work as principal contractor on major LED lighting schemes UK-wide,”

“The benefits of investing in LED lighting are considerable for all involved and this shift has been happening for a number of years now. It’s great to see because long-term it helps the country to reduce its carbon emissions dramatically while driving down the cost of operating the infrastructure for local authorities.”

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