Do you care about the environment? Faulty street lamps reporting
Sometimes we hear that life is too fast and from time to time we should stop and sniff the flowers. I agree with that but I’m afraid that if we don’t start to do something about pollution and climate change- there will be no flowers to sniff and admire in the near future.
We all should do our bit to limit CO2 emission, recycle and protect the environment. This post is about that- one little thing that you can do at NO COST whatsoever. This little thing could limit CO2 emission and save council money (YOUR money if you are an honest taxpayer).
Look at this picture. What is wrong with it besides that it was taken in Bolsover?
Did you notice that street-light is on a bright, sunny day? Here is another example from the same trip I made a few days ago:
Did you know that “old style” sodium lamps used to light our streets burn between 400W and 600W per hour? Did you know that each one of those faulty lamps will use between 4800W to 7200W per day unnecessarily? Each day? In each week? Every month as long as some resident won’t report it?
For many years one of my weird hobbies was reporting those faulty lampposts. It started in 2010 but my biggest success in that fight was in Sheffield. Whenever I notice a faulty lamp near my home or when I was driving around town- I reported it to the Council. It was like fighting windmills. Whenever I reported one, I almost immediately found another. Sheffield is a big city…
Back then I run a community website (like shirebrook247.com but much much bigger). At some point, I asked on the forum if other users see faulty lamps near their houses. In less than week users of my website reported 40 broken lamps. Then I decided to ask for help the wider public- I went to local media. You can see an article about it from Sheffield Star below:
Street lamps are maintained and paid by our taxes through County Council budged. So every fixed lamp help lower electricity bill for us (our County). We can’t do anything about crazy Town Council debt and spending but we can help our County. So whenever you see broken lamp- remember where it is and report it to County through this website:
https://apps.derbyshire.gov.uk/applications/do-it-now/streetlighting.asp
Website is very easy to use. You just click a few icons (street lights, lightbulb, on during the day) and add a location (you can use “registration plate of a lamp” [numbers printed on the post about 1.7m above ground] or just find it on map). It takes literally a few seconds.
Usually, it took about two weeks to fix a faulty lamp but since Chinese Plague came to our country everything takes more time so I’m not sure how long it will take this time. Anyway, after filling report you will receive ref number so you can observe the progress of the Council in fixing the problem:
Thanks for contacting us
The information you provided will be sent to the relevant person to look at.
Your reference number is F703253. You can check the status of your enquiry on our website.
Thanks for contacting us
The information you provided will be sent to the relevant person to look at.
Your reference number is F703256. You can check the status of your enquiry on our website.
I will observe lamps reported in this article to let you know how long it will take to fix them.
Sylwester Zwierzynski
