Netherfield is a residential grid square in Milton Keynes and is part of the original development of MK and was build over 40 years ago. The area has some social issues and suffers from a bad reputation and high crime.
The decision for using Netherfield for a trial site for remote monitoring and white light was taken because of the issues of the area and because it was felt that the residents sometimes believed they were overlooked for regeneration projects and this would help address that.
Over 400 lighting units were to be replaced and I worked closely with Woughton Parish Council to ensure residents and visitors were kept informed of the plans and progress. I was awarded a ‘working in partnership’ award in 05/06 for this scheme and is very thankful to Woughton Parish Council for their help in facilitating the changes.
The old lighting stock used the standard globe luminaires on 5m square columns and although there was a reasonable budget it was not enough money to change columns positions so this had to be addressed. The main issue was column spacing which meant I had to design the lighting scheme almost backwards to make sure that I hit BS5489:2003 S class standards with the new lighting but from the current positions.
The existing luminaires had either 70 or 150 watt SON lamps in them and I was able to replace those with either 35 or 70 watt CDMT lamps and achieve a more uniform lighting scheme. This was mainly due to increasing the column height to 6m to enable the spacing to cope with the S Class uniformity requirements and allowed also for varying the light levels later in the evening to save energy.
The new columns used were 6m conical stainless steel which were chosen due to their life span and negligible maintenance requirements. The columns are also immune to dog urine and this means they do not degrade if on dog walking routes. As the columns do not need painting and will last 100’s of years they look as good on day one as they do for the course of their lifetime so they maintain the clean and simple finish the scheme required as well as cutting costs for looking after them on cyclical maintenance. The column manufacturer will also buy them back to recycle if they should be knocked down so further reducing their carbon footprint and helping to meet the government energy targets in the process.
The new lanterns were from a local manufacturer and were chosen as they were low glare, easy to maintain and were the right environment for the new electronic remote monitoring control gear. The SELC monitoring system which was used was proven technology from Europe but this was the first major scheme in the UK. The system enables the lighting to be monitored from any pc in the world and can tell you when a lamp is about to fail, when it has failed and what is wrong with it if something else happens to it. This means that the Council could streamline their maintenance and again reduce cost whilst keeping more lights in lighting for the residents benefit.
The system can also vary lighting levels which means that at 10pm at night the lighting reduces from a BS5489:2003 S4 lighting class to a S5 so saving energy and increasing the life expectancy of the lamp which again reduces maintenance costs. The residents were not told of the light reduction when the trials took place and not one noticed the reduction and we had only positive feedback about the lighting levels. Reducing the levels means the Council saved money, and helped provide a better environment for residents sleeping by reducing any light ingress and of course helped keep any wildlife in the area happy as it was less intrusive to their nocturnal habits.
It was of course not all plain sailing as the system and the concept were new to all concerned but the team I worked with of manufacturers, contractor and client meant we all pulled together to make it a success. This scheme was the catalyst for Elexon and UMSUG changing their charging codes for CMS (Central Management Systems) and has changed the way street lighting is controlled in the UK.
