'Completely out of character': Shrewsbury street light replacements under fire

Bishop Street in Cherry Orchard falls within the Shrewsbury conservation area, placing tight planning restrictions on any residents wanting to make even minimal changes to their properties.

Those living in the street have now accused the council of breaking its own rules after "sleek and modern" replacement lights were installed.

Residents raised concerns with the council 18 months ago when she noticed signs had been put up on some of the lamps.

"Notices had been put on a couple of them because they had degraded in terms of quality, which I understand," said one woman who lives on the street.

"I emailed our local member, Councillor Hannah Fraser, but she had not been made aware.

"It went quiet for about 15 months, until I looked out of my window one day in the summer and contractors were in the process of digging up the lamp post."

She said she confronted the contractors and they stopped the work, but last week, she returned home one evening to find the lamps had been replaced.

"The council promised to involve residents in discussions about a replacement scheme," she said.

"But they have lied about this and with no discussion replaced the lamps with new ones that are completely out of character. They are higher than the house.

Stringent

"The council is very stringent about what we can and cannot do in terms of changing our environment. If I wanted to take down a tree or change my windows I would have to seek and pay for planning permission to do that.

"But we accept that it is part of living in a conservation area. It is clearly an area of heritage and has been preserved in that way.

"It is a shambles that the council has taken this approach. It is going against the whole principle of having a conservation area.

"Residents are really unhappy about this. We feel powerless. Our views have not been taken into account."

Shropshire Council said refurbishing the old lamps was not possible within budget constraints.

Jason Hughes, street lighting and traffic signals commissioner, said: "Our current standard for lighting on residential roads is a six-metre aluminium column with an LED lantern. In a conservation area this will be the same but in anodised black.

“The older sodium lanterns are being phased out of production making them obsolete in the future. All of our new LED lanterns are designed to minimise light pollution and are more energy efficient.

“The aluminium columns used have a life expectancy of 60-plus years making them better value for money than a standard steel column lasting half this. The new aluminium columns installed may be slightly taller at six metres than some of the older five-metre columns; this is to accommodate the light spread and column spacings over the highway which is a design factor.

“We have looked into options to refurbish older fluted columns; unfortunately, the costs are restrictive, meaning we would be replacing less columns with structural defects, increasing risk of failures in other areas.”