Clocks and street lights

You've probably had enough reminders to put your clocks back an hour at 2 am on Sunday. But what will our street lights do? When will they go off? You may remember all the fuss when faulty photocells meant that street lights went off much too early for a couple of weeks.

Crews from the council’s StreetCare team have been replacing thousands of faulty photocells on South Gloucestershire’s streetlights - they were still doing parts of South Yate today (24 October)

The faulty units have been replaced by the manufacturer at no charge to the council and by this autumn’s hour change, more than 9,000 replacement photocells in mainly urban areas will have been installed. A final 3,000 units, in mainly rural areas, will be replaced by the end of November - they haven't srrived from the manufacturer yet.

In areas where the replacement photocells are being installed after 26 October, existing street lights will continue to switch off an hour earlier than intended, at approximately 1045pm. This is expected to begin on 20 October and will last for about two weeks, before units come back into line with GMT or are replaced as part of the ongoing works.

As well as resolving the hour change issue the replacement units have also been adjusted to operate to the council’s revised part-night lighting regime of 1am to 5am, providing an extra hour of light each night.

Part-night lighting was adopted by the council as part of measures to conserve energy and reduce carbon emissions through South Gloucestershire. Approximately two-thirds of the district’s 30,000 street lights have been switched to part-night operation.