Road lights go green for £3.6m

A DRIVE to transform Tameside into a greener borough will see thousands of street lights swapped for energy saving lanterns and council vans replaced with electric vehicles.

The town hall has been rolling out a huge scheme to replace lamps across the borough and has committed £5m to upgrade all lighting on residential streets to LED. The executive cabinet has now agreed to push forward with the second phase of the project which will see 7,500 lanterns along main roads replaced, costing £3.6m.

It is estimated that the lower energy lights will provide massive savings for the authority’s budget and they will pay for themselves within 13 years.

Council vehicles are also to be swapped for electric alternatives in a bid to make the authority greener and more sustainable. Plans to replace about 10pc of the town hall’s fleet with new vehicles at a cost of £316,114 were also approved.

The vehicles are currently used across pest control, libraries, digital, and messenger services.

Ian Saxon, director of operations and neighbourhoods, told members the LED project would pay for itself and was “the right thing to do environmentally.”