There are two things that I would like to discuss:
Firstly, it is very interesting reading Rojo's observations as it covers parts of Greater London that I like but I rarely visit as I am currently live in West Wickham (in-between Bromley and Croydon). However I gather that Rojo's observations would mainly cover the following boroughs:
> Redbridge
> Barking and Dagenham
> Newham
> Havering
> Waltham Forrest
> Haringey
> Enfield
> Tower Hamlets
> Epping Forrest
(if i have missed out any other boroughs, my apologies Rojo), hence these are likely to be Rojo's "turf"
, and from what it appears, Redbridge , Barking and Dagenham, Newham, Waltham Forrest and Haringey have put less emphasis on LED and focus more on Cosmopolis Urbis products.
For me, I am slightly more focused on the following boroughs:
> Bexley (one of my favourite London Boroughs for street lighting)
> Bromley
> Dartford (great range of modern SOX stock)
> Croydon (great range of older SOX stock)
> Lewisham
> Greenwich
> Southwark
> Lambeth
> Sutton (my other favourite London Borough for street lighting)
> Merton
> City of London (I currently work there)
Are there any other street lighting enthusiasts in London, if so, which part are you from and what parts would you consider to be your street lighting "turf"?
Secondly, London is starting to develop two different (and occasionally conflicting) versions of street lighting:
1 - Local council run Lighting:
Your typical staple lantern for that particular borough, with the contract awarded to different companies, e.g most of South East London is Cartledge/May Gurney territory, (and a rather good job they have done, I may add).
The advantage to this is that the local authorities are noticeably different, e.g. Greenwich (Arcs on short, bracketed, brown CU Phosco columns), Bexley (Urbis ZX2/ZX3/ ZXU1/Axias, Philips SRS201/XGS103 on medium bracketed Dark Green stainton/corus/fabrikat columns), and Bromley (Urbis Axias/Teceos, WRTL Lumas and Philips SRS201s on long bracketed, pale green Fabrikat brackets) are all the Kent part of greater London yet are all very different.
Dartford and the rest of Kent county council uses the same set of lighting stock (Axias, Arc 80s and Iridium 252s, post-top on galvanized CU Phosco columns).
2 - TFL Lighting:
Interesting as this covers all sort of roads all over London, and is currently revamping all it stock to LED. Currently, the advantage of TFL lighting, is that since its formation in 2002/2003, some forgotten TFL roads have been trapped in a, somewhat, time warp.
For example, the local borough has been transformed (either in a PFI scheme or just over time), yet that TFL road has remained the same. Bromley's A21 and A232 is a good example of this, whereby the side roads have been upgraded to LED and Cosmopolis, yet the road itself is still SOX). The down side is that these will disappear soon as the LED replacement scheme nears completion. However the LED replacements are, currently, quite good.