I noticed that, streets are going to look rather strange at night at times before midnight and after 5am.

That being said, I can see a time when ALL columns will eventually have LED lanterns, so this is probably just a preliminary phase.

Yeah, like the council are going to spend £1500 on a new column to supplement an existing one for which they already have a maintenance liability, when they could just lantern swap for about £300.

Then why bother at all? Why not add the remaining lanterns to the units that are already switched off from 12-5am. They'll spend more, investing in the LED lanterns and then waiting to break even on them. The 35W lamps aren't even that rare, expensive, or difficult to fit.

You are not making any sense.

The reason why councils are investing in LED is because it is lower energy and lower maintenance, so effectively the running costs are slashed.

I know. One ill thought-out statement led to another. But some councils, manufacturers and organisations are claiming benefits that don't hold up in the real world, like light pollution and safety/security. I've found it difficult finding material online that are objective with regards to all light sources rather than automatically being pro-LED, and that frustrates me. It seems like the industry is dictating the market.

Noticed from driving through Harlow today that new Phosco P678s have gone up around a roundabout, replacing SGS203s on a mixture of steel and concrete columns. I thought P678s were discontinued several years ago, unless of course they're second-hand or imports.

Travelled back along the North Circular last night from Hanger Lane to the Bounds Green bend. I would say around 90% of this stretch is now LED. I must say, the P850 luminaires do a fine job in terms of optical control and cutting through last night's fog (by comparison to SON!)

The only sections that aren't LED are:
-Brent Cross Flyover (still TrafficVisions and very small row of MA60s)
-Finchley Bypass (still MRL 6s for the most part)
-Colney Hatch (one small row of SOX, westbound carriageway only)
-Bounds Green/New Southgate (still Arcs)

Hampshire County Council are currently consulting on cost saving measures to the highways maintenance budget, focusing on street lighting, grass cutting and weed killing.

In terms of street lighting, they have asked for people to rank order their preferences from the following options, which are listed in order of how much money the options would save, from least to most:

1. Alter the switch on/ switch off times so that lights come on later and switch off earlier (trimming).
2. Dim all street lights by 65% between midnight and 5am, and 45% at other times.
3. As above, but further dimming in rural areas.
4. Dim all street lights by 65% between midnight and 5am, and 55% at other times.
5. As above, but further dimming in rural areas.
6. Turn off all street lights between midnight and 5am.

According to the consultation, Hampshire's lighting is currently set to dim by 60% between midnight and 5am, and 30% at other times.

I can imagine what the outcome of the consultation will be; it will probably be in the same order as above.

Trimming doesn't save a great deal of power. Part night saves the most but may well be socially unacceptable in largely urban Hampshire. My money is on more dimming - most of the general public can't tell its dimmed already anyway.

What we need to bear in mind is that compared with a few years ago significant savings have already been made. Switching has gone from typically 70LUX and 100LUX down to about 35LUX, and the lamp and gear systems used are significantly lower wattage. It's already typical for main road SON to run at about 110W and side road CFL at 24W, so even changing over to LED wouldn't make a massive saving. So really, changes aren't going to have a massive impact.