Plans for a multi-million project to replace street lighting in Nottingham has moved a step closer following a successful bid for cash to support the project.
Nottingham City Council was successful a bid to the Levelling Up funding (LUF) of £18 million to renew roads and pavements, street lights, and roll out more electric charging points across the city.
Cash will to go towards the project to change the current traffic lighting facilities with LED technology.
And the city council recently used its delegated powers to approve plans to spend £40,000 of the grant to help get the project underway.
Officials say the wider scheme will lead to a significant reduction in the energy used by the Council’s street lighting stock aiming to promote Nottingham’s carbon neutral aspirations and also leading to cost reductions.
The LUF money will need to be spent by March 2024 and the works will be carried out through a variation to the Council’s current street lighting private finance initiative (PFI) contract.
It is estimated that the works will take two years - however before the works can start, a deed of variation will need to take place on the previous contract arrangements.
Whilst the funding from the LUF bid was formally announced at the end of October, the council said it needs to formally accept the grant and approve expenditure from it.
This is currently scheduled to take place through a report to Executive Board in December 2021.
Certain activities would require an earlier start if this project is to proceed to the timelines set out in the bid and deliver by the March 2024 grant end date.
In advance of the Executive Board report, this decision will draw down the funding already approved for the development and delivery of bids as part of the Local Transport Plan to meet the estimated £40,000 of costs that will be incurred between now and the formal approval for acceptance of the LUF grant being signed off.
Other options would be to wait until formal approval was received for the grant, but this would result in a delay to the project.
The city council feared this could create a "significant risk that not all of the highways street lighting stock would be replaced with LEDs within the timeframe of the LUF grant".
As a result, it said this would leave some lights with old technology, leading to a loss in energy savings and a risk that the council would have to return any unspent grant to the funder.
A City Council spokesperson said: “We have accepted £125,000 from the Government to help us put together strong bids for round two of the Levelling Up Fund. In the first round we successfully secured £18m for a range of transport improvements which included a two-year programme to fit all streetlights across the city with LED bulbs, which we are now gearing up towards starting.
“We were extremely disappointed that our other round one bids were unsuccessful and this funding gives us the opportunity to carry out further work to develop high quality second round bids.”
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