Greener traffic lights for Shropshire after government funding
Shropshire Council has been given a £250,000 grant to improve the county’s traffic lights, and to save money and carbon by reducing the amount of power that they use.
The funding has been awarded by the Government’s Traffic Signals Maintenance Specific Grant – which will speed up its traffic signals refurbishment programme over the next two years.
Steve Charmley, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member with responsibility for highways, said: “This is excellent news for Shropshire and will help to ensure that we have better, more reliable traffic lights, but also help to save the council money, and reduce the carbon emissions that result from traffic light usage and maintenance. It also means that we will achieve our carbon reduction and improved air quality targets more quickly. So, it’s good news for the council, for all road users, and for the environment.”
The money will be spent to convert 11 low voltage traffic light junctions to extra low voltage. They will also but upgraded to Microprocessor Optimised Vehicle Actuation, improving reliability, safety, journey time reliability, capacity and reducing power consumption – saving money and carbon.
A programme of refurbishing controlled crossings from low to extra low voltage will be partially completed.
Councillor Charmley said this would significantly reduce energy/carbon consumption by around 65 per cent, improve reliability , and allow future co-location of pollution monitors and other sensors. The sites will be remotely monitored, eliminating wasted site visits and saving wasted fuel and money.
Remote monitoring units will also be added to other crossing sites.
"Assuming a 30-year life span for each set of lights this work will save the council an estimated £118,500," Councillor Charmley said.
Nine of the schemes are already on the refurbishment programme for 2021/23 and this funding would allow the remaining two to be brought forward over the next two years.
