Westminster Council has decided that it won’t convert all of its remaining gas street lamps to electricity following a public consultation triggered by heritage outcry over the plans.
Around 300 of the council’s 14,000 streetlights are gas powered, and a consultation was looking at plans to convert them to electric. The council had argued that the gas lamps are expensive to maintain and don’t provide suitable lighting, but the plans were opposed by heritage lobby groups who campaigned to save them.
Following the consultation, Westminster City Council says that it has decided to halt the proposed conversion of 174 gas lamps to electric lamps. The 174 gas lamps include 138 Grade II listed gas lamps and 36 non-listed gas lamps in prominent positions across the city, and will continue to light the streets of Westminster in the current structure.
However, 94 non-listed gas lamps will still be converted to run on electricity.
The council says that these 94 non-listed gas lamps will be fitted with LED lighting developed by specialist manufacturers which both replicates the soft ‘honey’ lighting glow, as well as including replica mantles, piping and clocks. In addition, the designs of the three replacement lantern styles will be enhanced to reflect more of the detail of the original lanterns, following consultation with Historic England and other heritage bodies.
For the street lamps that remain gas powered, the council says that it will be working to improve the repair time when they break following local resident concerns about streets being dark at night.
Councillor Paul Dimoldenberg, Cabinet Member for City Management and Air Quality at Westminster City Council said: “Public safety has always been our prime consideration, but we also acknowledge the strong heritage issues at stake.”
“We hope that by keeping the 174 gas lights shining across Westminster, we can both keep our streets safe and preserve our precious heritage. Converting the 94 unlisted gas lamps to LED will make a positive contribution to reaching the Council’s zero carbon target by 2030.”
However, the future of the remaining gas lamps isn’t safe as the Council says that it may need to electrify them where they face lengthy delays to repairs or it becomes too costly or unsafe not to.
The 174 gas lamps will be retained in the following streets:
The listed gas lamps are on: Albany Courtyard, Bedford Street, Buckingham Palace Road, Carlton Gardens, Carlton House Terrace, Carting Lane, Catherine Street, Chandos Place, Churton Place, St Paul’s – Covent Garden, Dean Bradley Street, Dean Stanley Street, Dean’s Yard, Goodwin’s Court, Henrietta Street, King Street, Little College Street, New Row, The Sanctuary, Smith Square, St James’s Place, Tavistock Street, Trevor Square, Warwick Street
The unlisted gas lamps are on: Barton Street, Blue Ball Yard, Buckingham Mews, Carlton Gardens, Cecil Court, Cowley Street, Grosvenor Gardens Mews West, Inigo Place, Old Palace Yard, Rutland Gardens, Strand junction Carting Lane
Smells like a stay of execution only.
I wonder if in the not too distant,the good burghers will point to their shiny new enhanced replicas and cry “climate change” and “they look like the real thing.”
Even if indeed they do, they won’t be and what’s more, we’ll know. You just can’t beat a living flame.
I completely agree with the comment above. The entity which has now purchased a significant number of buildings in the Covent Garden area still has a plan to “upgrade and enhance” the existing street lighting, which makes us tremble. At least the Council has listened to those of us who despair of this sort of plan, offered in the name of “efficiency”, and Climate Change (now an umbrella term for destroying historic resources in general).
As the consultation is now over, I wished to write the Council to commend their decision. But nowhere on their website is a specific email address to be found. Anyone have one for this sort of thing?
Cllr Dimoldenberg would be the best person to write to: https://committees.westminster.gov.uk/mgUserInfo.aspx?UID=147
By chance The London Nobody Knows, a quirkly little film about fading landmarks in the late 60s fronted by a wandering, slightly detached James Mason and presumably designed for international audiences, was on TV the other day and shows a gas lamp lighter in Pump Court.