Roland Hewes
I know I wasn’t the only one to notice the dramatic change in street lighting levels in our area when Enfield switched from Sodium to LED lamp heads last year. This was done to save energy as they are so much more efficient to run; no argument there. However, as can be seen from the accompanying photos, it appeared to have been executed very poorly. This can best be seen when compared to neighbouring Haringey, who have also made the switch but done so correctly.
 |  |
| NEW LED LIT ENFIELD STREET | OLD SODIUM LIT ENFIELD STREET |
Thankfully, I was able to connect with someone on York Road who was something of an LED lighting expert through his work, and some other local residents who cared about how this was affecting our neighbourhood. This triggered us to take lumen measurements across a great number of locations to see what had happened to our light levels.
We found that across the board the Enfield side roads gave out a pitiful level of light. Most interesting, for comparison, was Queens Road in Bounds Green as it straddles two boroughs; ¾ of it is in Haringey and ¼ in Enfield.
Here in my video is what we found: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFc5AlPrrLQ
Spoiler alert: Enfield’s LED light heads emitted under 10% of that given out by the Haringey light heads on the same street! In an effort to cut a long story short, It transpired that there were a number of issues at play:
When we alerted Enfield Council to this they were painfully slow to respond and after much chasing they got their lighting people to do a survey. They came back and said that they had met minimum levels. Although to reach these minimum levels they did hack back the trees on York Road. We then saw street safety being highlighted in the media exemplified by the tragic Sarah Everard case.
We continued to kick up a stink and in what can be seen as a partial victory a few upstanding residents of Bowes went out to get some light measures recently and found Enfield council had turned them up a bit. However, don’t crack open the champagne just yet as the Haringey lamp heads on Queens Road are still just over 12 times brighter than we enjoy in Enfield. I do hope the current Enfield Labour administration will be revisiting this issue. We really do deserve better than this!
Stay Safe and keep warm.
We found that across the board the Enfield side roads gave out a pitiful level of light. Most interesting, for comparison, was Queens Road in Bounds Green as it straddles two boroughs; ¾ of it is in Haringey and ¼ in Enfield.
Here in my video is what we found: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFc5AlPrrLQ
Spoiler alert: Enfield’s LED light heads emitted under 10% of that given out by the Haringey light heads on the same street! In an effort to cut a long story short, It transpired that there were a number of issues at play:
- In the Enfield light heads, half of the LED diodes in the light heads remained switched off whilst all are illuminated on the Haringey ones.
- It also appeared that the spread of the light heads used in Enfield didn’t match that of those it replaced so you ended up with a ‘zebra effect’ on the roads and pavements (light and dark stripes).
When we alerted Enfield Council to this they were painfully slow to respond and after much chasing they got their lighting people to do a survey. They came back and said that they had met minimum levels. Although to reach these minimum levels they did hack back the trees on York Road. We then saw street safety being highlighted in the media exemplified by the tragic Sarah Everard case.
We continued to kick up a stink and in what can be seen as a partial victory a few upstanding residents of Bowes went out to get some light measures recently and found Enfield council had turned them up a bit. However, don’t crack open the champagne just yet as the Haringey lamp heads on Queens Road are still just over 12 times brighter than we enjoy in Enfield. I do hope the current Enfield Labour administration will be revisiting this issue. We really do deserve better than this!
Stay Safe and keep warm.
RSS Feed
