Longer term residents of Forest Hill will remember some years back a lot of the streets got new lighting. New lampposts in new locations.
Every year as the earlier darkness draws in, it becomes apparent how badly done some of these were. Along Church Rise for example, 80% of the lights themselves are in tree canopies. Giving off very little light.
Walking through a park and street in Southwark last night we noticed that when their lampposts are next to trees, the lights are much lower and give off far more light. Resulting in “street lighting”.
Does anyone else live on a street which seems to have received similarly poor lighting since the change? And is it possible do you think for them to shorten some of the poles to accommodate lower lights to light the streets?
When the lights are out of the trees they give off ample light. Can you tell which is Lewisham and which is Southwark?
When last our street lighting was renewed under a joint contract on a borough wide basis in tandem with a co-located authority many of the assumed benefits were simply not delivered.
Design development was almost on a random basis with little concern paid to what should have been well-understood standards for light distribution factors, ignoring many of them that should have been implemented.
Supervision of the design process which was allegedely independent of the contractor was rarely in evidence which resulted ultimately in a very poor quality (and irregular) designs for street lighting schemes across too many of our streets. How many badly lit areas can you observe that lighting columns are predominantly on one side of the street?
In its inevitable poor quality outcome, there can be little expectation of any real lessons learned. Sad really.
Parts of Woolstone Road are terrible. I haven’t walked along there after dark for a while but there was at least one section where I was putting my feet down into blackness - literally couldn’t see the pavement, which is doubly concerning since so much of that pavement is ruptured.
It’s exacerbated by the shadows somehow being darker, so even a parked vehicle casts a darker shadow on the pavement than with the old lights. I don’t understand the physics of it.
It’s an interesting point about having shorter lampposts for lights next to trees. Seems so obvious!
I think this is the worst culprit on Woolstone Road. Pretty ridiculous place to put a lamppost. It also has a warning sign for road humps ahead, which is obscured by the tree trunk. Has the placement of lampposts changed too? Most are now at the back of the pavement and I’m pretty sure the old ones were next to the kerb.
The poor design and planning of Lewisham’s street lighting is further compounded by ‘variable lighting’ levels where the lamps are dimmed at off peak times, using discharge lamps which are much less efficient than LED with optics that can throw the light where is it needed. Southwark is almost entirely LED lit with design/installations more responsive to the needs of individual street characteristics than the Lewisham/Croydon one size fits all failed PFI approach. LED technology has come a long way in the quality of light and colour rendering in recent years and being cheaper to run, I’d like to know if Southwarks lighting energy costs are also lower, negating any legacy benefit to Lewisham’s variable lighting. I agree that with Winter fast approaching, I too am not looking forward to negotiating the poor state of repair to pavements in the dark mornings with poor lighting, forced to try to navigate between parked cars and along rat runs like Devonshire Rd to avoid the blocked pavements on bin days, like this weeks march of the bins below looking along a rather gloomy Devonshire Road. Quality of public space and street furniture matters, streets should be safe for people to use.
Phew, not just me then. Glad you have noticed Southwark being much better.
Seems the whole project for Lewisham, especially Perry Vale area etc was a complete farce. Resulting in darker more dangerous streets.
Wonder if the councillors would like to ask if anything can be done retrospectively. Would love to see some temp lamps put on the existing poles a little lower down.
It was an additional - and possibly of even greater - regret that the borough wide contract was started just before LED’s were more universally prevailent.
Still we will only have to wait another 25+ years for that situation to be corrected.
Sorry @Fergus_NB can I just ask who you would recommend contacting about this? The new lights were installed a good few years back and we were told a proper survey had been done for the best lighting possible. Sunderland Rd has one side of the road half way, then the other. Church Rise has massive sections in complete darkness, as do other roads.
I know the whole project won’t get a make over but do you think there is scope for remedial work in certain problematic places? As I have said earlier in the thread, even shortening some light poles to be beneath the canopy of the trees would help.
Lewisham Council’s contractual position is probably not very strong - mainly in that it could be anticipated that the passage of time in which latent design defects could and should have been detected has probably passed.
The Council could however examine what its position was regarding acceptance of the systems upon completion from the Contractor (many of us will recall who that was - but we seem to be avoiding naming them). Did the Council annotate any completion certificates with Schedules of Defects or conditions where defects had been recorded and what remedy was expected to be delivered by the contractor and over what period of time? Did the contractor discharge their contractual obligations?
Sorry to hear that. It really sad that such poor execution of a new lighting plan leaving the road like this. Once the leaves drop it’s a bit better but the combo of the pavement in places and the lighting isn’t great even then.
That is a shame. I guess we should all work hard at communicating with our local councillors to press the case for changes. I can’t say I’ve ever (as a 60 year old woman) felt vulnerable walking at night here, but can recommend wearing good shoes that enable brisk and purposeful walking and keeping a torch on hand to avoid tripping on uneven roads, slipping on wet leaves or squelching in dog poo. I sometimes see a young blind woman tap-tapping along home from work on her own, and if she can manage it, I’m sure I can! Reclaim the streets!
