Reader on the new lighting: “Totally f***** up.” What does the City say?

Reader, who appealed to officials and municipal service employees to get out from behind their desks and deal with the issue of icy roads, also shared his observations à propos the new lighting in Bolesławiec:

(...) this new lighting (...) is totally f***** up. I’m sorry, but there’s no other way to describe it. The lamps are mounted on brackets, all identical, bent as if backwards.

He also added: – And instead of shining onto the pavement and street, the lamp illuminates the grass beneath the pole with a beam of light.

The controversy surrounding the new street lighting in the City of Ceramics was discussed during the November session of the Bolesławiec City Council. Robert Rzepnicki, head of the Public Procurement and Municipal Investments Department at Bolesławiec City Hall, stressed that this is a very large project. He said that each year, as part of modernisation, the city administration replaced 15–20 LED fixtures and 5–7 poles. Now, more than 3,100 fixtures are being replaced on 250 streets.

At this point, Mayor Piotr Roman added that if the City had not received funding for the project, then considering the previous pace, the lighting might have taken 200 years to replace.

City officials repeatedly stressed that problems were bound to arise with an undertaking of this scale. They reminded residents that any irregularities can be reported to municipal services.

Why do the streetlights shine differently?

The department head explained to the councillors that thanks to the new lighting—which, as he emphasised, is important to the city administration—the amount of CO₂ emitted by streetlights will decrease. He also said that the lamps are now being positioned so that they do not shine into windows.

He added that people are now calling the office to complain that they used to have light in their yards, but now they do not. They ask for the previous situation to be restored. But that will not happen. – We cannot illuminate private properties or houses. Or shine into windows, as was the case until now – explained R. Rzepnicki. P. Roman added: – The European Union standards that treat excessive lighting as environmental pollution affecting, among other things, bird flights will reach us. They are not in place yet. But the Italians who visited us spoke about it; they said we could face the same problems they have.

What do you think? We invite you to join the discussion.

(Header photo: archive).