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PostPosted: Wed Mar 25, 2015 8:41 pm 
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Central government funding has been announced for lighting upgrades in Southend, according to Highways Magazine:

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All street lighting lanterns and illuminated street furniture in Southend will be replaced with new LEDs. Scheme also includes the replacement of some cast iron and concrete lighting columns. The scheme will also install a Central Management System for controlling the lights.


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PostPosted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 3:56 pm 
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Beta 5 wrote:
As of next week ECC will be switching the street lights off at 1am instead of midnight
It's fascinating to see (1) a Conservative-controlled council; (2) the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for Colchester; (3) the Police and Crime Commissioner for Essex, who is Conservative and (4) even a Conservative MP all criticising Conservative-controlled Essex County Council about their unpopular part-night lighting policy. Anybody would think there's an election around the corner!

Having said that, all these Conservatives do have a point - Essex County Council was named the worst authority for street lighting in a public satisfaction poll at the end of 2014. Sadly for all these other Conservatives, there are no elections to Essex County Council until 2017, so Essex County Council's Conservatives could theoretically ignore this tidal wave of criticism and dig their heels in as much as they like before being booted out of office two years from now!

Meanwhile back in Colchester, which is receiving the lion's share of LED lanterns in Essex County Council's LED trial, the street lighting crews are beginning to tackle some of the harder stuff like wall-mounted lanterns. All photographs were taken yesterday (Thursday 26th March 2015):

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Three new wall-mounted Amperas in Crouch Street.

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Crouch Street in the early hours of the morning reveals there's still some SON left to tackle.

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The 1970s dual carriageways are also being tackled - this is the A134 Southway, and Urbis Ampera Maxis are being fitted to (either Stainton or Petit Jean - the column doors are nameless) octagonal columns which date back to the road's construction in 1975.

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Southway at night, again revealing there's a bit of SON still left to tackle (in this case, two Iridiums and an original-fit GEC turtle).

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What's puzzling me is that the old brackets on the dual carriageway are being ditched in favour of shiny new ones, which at first glance looks like a needless waste of money and effort.

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The Amperas could surely be retrofitted to the old brackets, as has occurred on most of the 8 and 10m octagonal columns around the town. I haven't had the fortune of encountering any of the crews that are doing this work yet, so I'm at a loss to explain why this is happening. My only thought is that Essex County Council may believe that the new Amperas will outlive the brackets, which are beginning to rust. If the Amperas last 25 years, the octagonal columns on Southway will be 65 years old by this point.

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These two 10m columns in Headgate have also had their 2m outreach brackets removed in favour of new brackets fitted with Ampera Maxis, but the bracket on a third identical column in the background escaped being renewed and was fitted with an Ampera Midi.

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Shiny new brackets have even appeared on black-painted columns.

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Again, I cannot fathom why. Surely the new LED lantern could have just been a straight swap for the old one, as the crews did elsewhere in the town.

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Furthermore, even brand new columns are inexplicably getting new brackets. Colchester's new bus station opened in 2012, and was the only part of the town centre lit with white light (metal halide). This new double bracket replaces the previous double bracket on one of the columns installed when the bus station was built. The old double bracket had longer outreach arms.

A couple more day and night views of the works currently in progress on the A134 Southway:

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Looking westbound from the end of Walsingham Way.

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The same view at night.

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Looking westbound from the end of Vineyard Gate. This photograph shows how far the crews had got by yesterday, although they would have made further progress along the dual carriageway last night.

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The same view at night.

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And a final view of the entire length of Southway, as seen from the St. Botolph's Roundabout. Yesterday, only two SGS204s, four SGS203s, two TrafficVisions, two Iridiums and a GEC turtle remain. The two Iridiums and GEC turtle are at an awkward traffic-controlled crossroads, which may explain why they weren't removed at the same time as the lanterns around them.

Three weeks ago, David wrote:
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The assorted GEC and Thorn turtles, GEC Z8600s, WRTL Arcs and SGS203s in Head Street have now been changed to Urbis Amperas.

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A close-up of the top of this column to show the spigot adapter that's needed before a lantern can be side-entry fitted. Colchester has loads of legacy top-entry columns that have been adapted to accept side-entry lanterns like this.

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Even some of Colchester's side-entry columns, like this ultra-rare silver-painted column in Vineyard Street have spigot adapters. It's almost certain that this column once had a three-eighty on it. Colchester's columns have been painted several colours over the years. I believe from old photographs that silver is the oldest colour, and this was followed by pale green, then copper red and most recently black. Unpainted columns are now becoming common.

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The good news is that, until such adapters are sourced, or new columns are erected, or the crews decide to cut off the bend and mount their Amperas post-top at 7 metres, Colchester's top-entry lanterns, likes the ones in Magdalen Street mentioned in earlier posts, may be around for a little while longer! This photograph was taken yesterday.


Last edited by David on Tue Oct 10, 2017 10:57 am, edited 2 times in total.

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PostPosted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 6:55 pm 
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Excellent pictures again David.

I suspect the new brackets are being fitted to speed up the work, especially on the double brackets (and they are rusty).

The A134 columns are the later Staintons (flush door) rather than Petit Jean. I suspect the new bracket has lanterns pre-fitted to it already, complete with new drop cables already wired in. The old bracket is lifted off and replaced with the new one. This will be quite quick compared to having to remove the old lanterns and fit a new drop cable (twice).

It is interesting that the "junction" of the vertical and horizontal is different - I haven't seen this style before.

The surviving Headgate outreach bracket looks more like a 2.5 or 3m version (they are much bigger than they look when on the ground) - perhaps it was retained for that reason, rather than ordering a special optic Ampera.

Hopefully the S&L columns may get new adapters to mount the lanterns side entry - rather than being cut down and losing the bend.


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PostPosted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 12:20 am 
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No worries, I hadn't thought of that (that replacing the old bracket with new pre-wired lanterns) would speed things up. I thought the crews had been motoring along pretty well up to now without needing new brackets. They even converted some triple-bracketed Staintons with long outreaches on the Albert Roundabout, which involved feeding new cables from three lanterns along the brackets, around the elbow and down the column (with the new cable attached to the old lantern's cable to feed it down I would hope, else they would've been there all night!).

I'm afraid I haven't seen what the crews plan to do with top-entry lanterns yet, as none have been converted to LED. A spigot adapter would be nice if the street lighting crews could source some, but they may also request a new column for each location, else cut the bend off and install the Amperas post-top or, as has just been seen with the octagonal columns, they could even bring in their own brackets to fit over the Stewarts & Lloyds columns and solve the problem that way.

Similarly, none of the sleeved concretes have been converted to LED yet, so it's currently a mystery as to what the crews plan to do with these as well.


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PostPosted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 12:25 am 
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I'm rather liking the SOXy look of the Ampera Midi. Still, the rate at which these replacements are happening is scary.

David wrote:
I'm afraid I haven't seen what the crews plan to do with top-entry lanterns yet, as none have been converted to LED. A spigot adapter would be nice if the street lighting crews could source some, but they may also request a new column for each location, else cut the bend off and install the Amperas post-top or, as has just been seen with the octagonal columns, they could even bring in their own brackets to fit over the Stewarts & Lloyds columns and solve the problem that way


Perhaps they ought to launch an LED version of the Industria 2601!


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PostPosted: Sun Mar 29, 2015 2:34 pm 
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Whilst David has done an excellent job of cataloguing installations in Essex, a few of my photos here from a flying trip a few months ago.


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PostPosted: Fri Apr 03, 2015 11:13 pm 
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Beta 5 wrote:
As of next week ECC will be switching the street lights off at 1am instead of midnight

Bizarrely, the Phosco P111 outside my home and the one three columns down the road both still go off at midnight on the button. The rest stay on until 1am. I'm quite happy about the one outside my home going off earlier than the others, although I'm sure the anomaly will soon be fixed.

Phosco152 wrote:
Whilst David has done an excellent job of cataloguing installations in Essex, a few of my photos here from a flying trip a few months ago.

I'm glad you got to that lovely old concrete next to Waterhouse Lane, as well as seeing some of Chelmsford's GEC Z5646s and Z5647s.


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 11:38 pm 
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Work continues apace on the LED conversions in Colchester, which form part of Essex County Council's LED trial. Colchester has the lion's share of the lanterns being installed - 920 in total, and if it wasn't for those pesky top-entry lanterns and old concretes, I think the contractors would be close to completing the project by now.

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Balkerne Hill (one of two dual carriageways around the town centre that isn't part-night switched) was converted last week. This photograph is from April 2015 and the new lanterns are Urbis Ampera Maxis.

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A night view of the recently completed LED conversion. This photograph is also from April 2015.

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A close-up view of the old lanterns from December 2014. The road was built in 1976, and although some of the original Petit Jean columns remain, the original GEC turtles have withered away over the years.

Note also the inconsistent mounting heights, with the original columns still standing tall at 12 metres, but a number of the replacement columns coming up short at 10m.

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The same view at night in December 2014.

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And the equivalent view today (April 2015), with lantern uniformity regained for the first time since the 1970s, but the issue of inconsistent column heights not addressed.

Ironically, the contractors had the perfect opportunity to fix the inconsistent column heights, as every bracket has just been renewed (as was done on Southway - see earlier post). Combining brackets of no height gain on 10m columns and brackets of 2 metre height gain on 8m columns would have created a 10m mounting height along the entire length of the carriageway!

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The Middleborough roundabout at the bottom of Balkerne Hill has also been converted to LED. This photograph from December 2014 shows one of the three-arm brackets on the roundabout's many traffic islands.

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The same column today (April 2015). Once again, the old bracket has disappeared in favour of what looks like a pre-installed and pre-wired new bracket to save on-site installation time.

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A close-up view of the new installation. The Ampera Maxi differs from the Ampera Midi in that it has two sets of LED arrays instead of one.

For most of Colchester's LED trial, Ampera Maxis have been installed on columns that have needed new brackets (12m columns, columns between 8 and 12m in difficult locations) and Ampera Midis have been installed on columns that did not require new brackets (10m and 8m columns).

This consistency of installation (Maxis on columns with new brackets, Midis on columns without new brackets) has led to inconsistency on the road, with Ampera Maxis on 8m columns appearing next to Ampera Midis on 10m columns. Hopefully the LED trial will allow for the Maxis to be dimmed down (or one of the arrays switched off) in these locations, in order to balance the lighting levels.

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A close-up view of one of the new three-arm installations on the Middleborough roundabout from April 2015.

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Attached to the Middleborough roundabout is Middleborough itself. Middleborough used to be the site of Colchester's old cattle market, but the cattle market was moved to the edge of town in 1982 and the area redeveloped into an office complex called The Octagon (on the left of the above picture from December 2014).

The redevelopment of Middleborough was accompanied by blue-painted GEC turtles, many of which have remained to this day...well, almost.

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The same view in April 2014. The 33 year old turtles have now gone in favour of Ampera Midis installed on the old brackets.

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A night-time version of the above view from December 2014, showing all the turtles in light.

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And the same view today (April 2015). White light has returned to Middleborough for the first time since the GEC three-eighty fluorescents were removed in 1982.

The double-bracketed column on the traffic island is still awaiting conversion, alongside some of the other awkwardly-located columns around Middleborough and the Middleborough roundabout.

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Another view of Middleborough from December 2014.

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The same view today (April 2015).

In February 2015, David wrote:
One of the billboard posters for Essex County Council's new campaign to reduce adult pedestrian road deaths and injuries at night has appeared at the end of my road:
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Thankfully, there are some lit routes away from the town centre that pedestrians can use, but St. Peter's Street isn't one of them.

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The latest poster to appear at the end of my road (where St. Peter's Street joins Middleborough) is this election poster by the Conservative Party. But can potential voters see the poster at night?

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Well, yes they can, but that's not thanks to Conservative-controlled Essex County Council, which still switch off the majority of its street lighting at 1am.


Last edited by David on Tue Oct 10, 2017 11:30 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Mon Apr 13, 2015 2:16 am 
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Well illuminating that poster is just clearly a waste of electricity.

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PostPosted: Fri May 08, 2015 3:08 pm 
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Last edited by Beta 5 on Wed Jan 30, 2019 9:37 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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