A three year programme to replace all of the 33,000 sodium street lamps in Leicester with LEDs is underway.
This week, the 1,000th street lamp was upgraded, as part of on-going work across the city by Leicester City Council.
Street lighting currently costs the council £2m a year. The council said the LED programme, which began in February and cost £13.8m, is expected to deliver annual savings of £1.2m and pay for itself in just over ten years.
The replacement project, being carried out by contractor Balfour Beatty, uses OrangeTek AriaLEDs. A new central management system, which will allow the brightness of the LED lamps to be varied throughout the night to suit local requirements, is also being installed.
City Mayor Peter Soulsby said: "While many councils are looking to make savings by switching off their street lamps, we are committing to long term improvements that mean that we will not have to resort to these archaic steps in Leicester. By investing in new technology and replacing all of the city's existing lamps with energy efficient LEDs, we can dramatically reduce our carbon footprint, slash the cost of our street lighting and ensure that the city's road network stays well lit around the clock."
Engineers will focus on replacing street lamps in residential areas in the first year of the programme, with lamps on the busier main roads being upgraded in the second and third year.
