We are encouraging everyone who sees streetlights on in the daytime in Surrey to report them. Daylight hour streetlighting wastes energy and increases CO2 emissions. If you observe instances of a) streetlights on during the day, and b) road signs illuminated during the day , please report them to Surrey County Council.

Alternatively, they have a phone number 08456 009 009 open between 8 a.m - 6 p.m Monday to Friday. Take option 4 on the call centre menu.

Rob pursued this with SCC to establish how they will be using future PFI funding to improve energy efficiency in street lighting.

In their reply on 14 December 2007 Surrey County Council have made a statement about the energy efficiency of the replacement street lighting they are currently planning. In effect they say:

• the new system will overall probably use slightly more energy than the current system
• the new lights themselves use more power - Surrey are replacing very old low pressure sodium lighting with the most modern CosmoPolis lights. These give a brighter light, less light polution, a better colour of light, but at the expense of higher power consumption.
• offsetting the higher power use per streetlight are measures to dim lights during the quiet hours of the night, switch some of them off in residential areas, and to use photo-electric cells which trigger on and off at lower ambient light levels than the current ones.

They also say that, 'all of Surrey's electrical energy for street lighting, illuminated signs & bollards, and for traffic signals is sourced from a "green" energy supply and therefore we have already achieved the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.' This is welcome news if the supply source is really "green", but Mr Turner does admit as his final comment, that in two year's time when the energy supply contract is renewed, the supply might change from green to brown (his description) based on cost!

Rob Palgrave is considering how to respond to Surrey's statement - if you have any suggestions or want to help, please get in contact with him here: robartpalgrave_at_hotmail.com. (Replace _ at_ by @) We still understand, although it has not been confirmed, that there is no scope for any of the technical aspects of the new scheme to be changed. Also that the Surrey Executive will be asked to consider the matter in January 2008, including a recommendation on which supplier to go with.