Tonight the parish council held an extraordinary meeting to hear details of the changes to Sutton’s street lighting which are about to take place.

In July 2011 the whole of Cambridgeshire County Council’s street lighting was transferred to contractor Balfour Beatty under a 25 year Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract, in return for cheaper maintenance and energy costs. The contract included replacing over the first five years of the PFI all street lights that Balfour Beatty considered had fewer than 30 years of life left in them, and the removal of one out of every ten street lights to save money.

A total of 45 lighting columns will be switched off in Sutton’s streets and estates, as part of this programme. More details are available here while the Parish Council’s website here includes a very helpful set of detailed maps for downloading.

Work on the street lights will begin in March.  In the event of any queries, contact Balfour Beatty directly on 0800 7838 247 or text 07800 140782 or email enquiries@lightingcambridgeshire.com

The parish council will need to make some decisions about the eighteen ‘heritage’ lighting columns in the high street conservation area. The county council is offering either to replace them free of charge with ordinary non-heritage columns; or to renew them at a cost to the parish council; or to allow the parish council to take on the responsibility (and the cost) of maintaining them.

It is somewhat surprising to say the least that the county council and its contractors appear to have no duty to have regard to an area’s conservation area status, and can simply remove heritage lighting columns and install ‘bog standard’ ones in a conservation area if other ‘lower tier’ councils don’t pay up. After all, any private citizen living in a conservation area who installed uPVC windows in their home would find planning officers descending on them like the proverbial ton of bricks.