A town council is preparing for its electricity bill for street lighting to rise.

Oakham Town Council has paid an outstanding bill for £9,270.12 for the 2022/23 period, but it is forecast to rise to as much as £37,000 for 2023/24.

Speaking to members at the last Oakham Town Council meeting, Coun Adam Lowe said: "I propose that we get this outstanding electricity bill paid from reserves with immediate effect, because in a few weeks' time the 2023/24 bill will be coming to us and that may be as high as £37,000."

Oakham Town Council will be footing a much larger bill for the running of the stret lamps in 2023/24. Image credit: LDRS.

In 2016, Rutland County Council introduced a new street lighting policy when it was agreed that Oakham Town Council – and other towns and parishes in the county – would pay the electricity bill for street lighting, and Rutland County Council would pay for the maintenance and change the sodium lamp heads to much cheaper and much more efficient LED ones.

Oakham Town Council has been paying the street lighting electricity bill of roughly £10,000 a year, since then.

Coun Lowe told the meeting: "The total cost of the upgrades would be in the region of £800,000 with the maintenance fund around £380,000 and the planned work taking about four years."

Street Lights in Oakham's Cuuts Close have been upgraded to LEDs in an attempt to reduce costs. Image credit: Nub News.

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He continued: "However, as we all know, Rutland County Council never upgraded any of the Oakham lights, and we are all fully aware that electricity costs have seen a 40% increase in the last year, with a further 60% increase predicted for the current financial year.

"What this all means is that Oakham Town Council – paying a figure of around £10,000 per year for street lighting based on 2016 prices, has now found us faced with an invoice for 2022/23 of around £26,000. We've paid part of that of course, but this still leaves the outstanding balance on the electricity bill of £9,270.12.

"I am suggesting that we pay this bill out of council reserves with immediate effect before the bill for 2023/24 comes to us – which may well be as high as £37,000 – and that we resolve the legacy issues with Rutland County Council as soon as possible."

A spokesperson for Rutland County Council said the street lights had been upgraded.

Rutland County Council have upgrade the streetlights in areas of Oakham in an attempt to reduce the energy bills being paid by Oakham Town Council. Not all street lamps have been done. Image credit: Nub News.

A statement said: "We understand the financial pressure that parish and town councils are facing because of rising energy costs. We are facing the exact same pressure and have been working hard to upgrade Rutland's streetlighting to energy efficient LED. This has meant investing £800,000 to improve streetlighting throughout the county. As a result, more than 95 per cent of all highway streetlighting in Oakham is now LED. Nearly 60 per cent of all community street lighting in Oakham is also now LED.

"Rutland County Council is responsible for inspecting and maintaining lighting stock throughout the county and we continue to replace any remaining non-LED lighting just as soon as these older lights reach the end of their useful life. Town and parish councils are responsible for paying the energy costs for community lighting. We have no agreements in place with individual Town or Parish Council's to cap these costs."

Oakham Town Council members voted unanimously to approve the payment from council reserves of the outstanding sum of £9,270.12 for the 2022/23 street lighting bill during a meeting on 14 June 2023.

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