Torbay will soon benefit from improved LED street lighting which will significantly improve the energy efficiency of our streetlights and lower our carbon emissions, and importantly, also save money in the long term, saving thousands of pounds over its lifetime.

As a result of the changes to streetlighting, it will be centrally controlled and upgrade the rest of our streetlights to LED Holophane Lanterns and to procure Telensa’s Control Management Sytem (CMS). This means more than 3,000 of the Bay’s street lights will be upgraded and centrally controlled. The system already operates successfully in a number of high profile areas including Birmingham, Hackney, Cambridge and Essex.

Deputy Leader of Torbay Council Chris Lewis said: “The proposed new streetlighting scheme will be fantastic for the Bay with the ability to vary the brightness of the lights in all areas enabling us to be more responsive, will be better for the environment, and also save both energy and costs in the long term.

“The new lighting will also help address anti-social behaviour and reduce the impact on our biodiversity across the Bay from artificial streetlighting.

“This is just one of a number of great schemes we have under our Climate Change Action Plan that the Bay will benefit from.

“It also forms part of our wider Pride in Place agenda in our Community and Corporate Plan which covers everything around our visitor economy, culture, climate, planning, natural environment and harbours, as well as our town centre regeneration programme which aims to make our towns become the places that they should be for our communities to enjoy.”

A key outcome from the project is that the estimated energy savings from the project can be reinvested into our council budgets to deliver further improvements to our council infrastructure and services.

Torbay Council’s Cabinet will make a decision regarding the proposed new lighting on 18 November 2025 and it is anticipated the new scheme could be complete by November 2026. You can read the Cabinet paper on our website here.

The new lighting is one of a number of key infrastructure projects to help reduce the Council’s carbon emissions as part of our Climate Change Action Plan. The announcement also comes during COP30 (10 November to 21 November 2025), which stands for the 30th ‘Conference of the Parties’ to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This is the United Nations' annual climate summit, where nearly 200 countries gather to negotiate and make decisions about tackling climate change.

Other projects in the Action Plan include:

• Decarbonsation of Paignton Library with new heat pumps being installed
• Funding for the Council’s fleet of electric vehicles
• Improving our procurement and commissioning of external companies and providers. Contracts will cover carbon and sustainability accounting from the beginning.

This also follows a significant amount of work already completed by the Council and partners including:

• energy efficiency measures at Torbay Leisure Centre. These include solar panels and air-source heat pumps. This saves around 320 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.
• Heat pumps at the Arid House at Torre Abbey. This saves around 100 tonnes of carbon dioxide over the project’s lifetime.
• Planting 2,000 new trees across the Bay through Forestry Commission grants. These have created long-term woodland areas, helping to support biodiversity and store carbon.

You can find out about the Council’s Climate Change Action Plan, and watch a video, on our website. 

The Council is also part of the Torbay Climate Partnership which is made up of a range of organisations from across the public, private and voluntary and community sectors in Torbay.

The image below shows the sensors and control devices for the new streetlighting and internet network controls would look.