Penrith BiD handed £6,000 by Council Group to Pay for Painting Council Lights and Railings in Town Centre

A Penrith group establish Westmorland and Furness made up of the town council Penrith BiD Penrith Chamber and Westmorland and Furness Council called the Penrith PAG (Place action group) was allocated a £6,000 budget to be used by the group to believer beneficial projects in Penrith.

The group has agreed to hand the money to Penrith BiD to be used to pay for painting of the heritage street lights and railings in the town centre.

The lights and railings are assets owned and maintained by Westmorland and Furness Council as Penrith Town Council never assumed responsibility or ownership of any footway lighting in Penrith from the former Eden District Council.

Westmorland and Furness Cabinet recently approved a new highways and footway lighting policy that will potentially see lights dimmed or illuminated for shorter periods of time as well as lights replaced with low energy led lights.

The new policy approved by Westmorland and Furness Council’s Cabinet last week (18 March), looks to harmonise street light maintenance arrangements to ensure a more consistent approach to managing the 19,450 street lights in Westmorland and Furness.

The plan is for all council-owned street lights to be brought onto one management system, enabling lighting levels to be altered at the click of a button and customised based on community need. Maintenance capabilities will also be improved through automatic alerts notifying engineers of faults and the ability to better manage energy usage.

A spokesperson for Westmorland and Furness Council said: “The agreed funding from Eden Locality Board will be used to enhance the appearance of Penrith Town Centre through the painting of heritage lampposts and railings.

“The new lighting policy agreed by Cabinet on 18 March states that all new lighting or replacements will be LED light source. This does not mean that any parish lighting assets transferred under the policy would immediately be upgraded to LED and there is no reason why any replacements on heritage lampposts would be incompatible with the policy.’’