Liverpool to light up with energy saving LED scheme
A multi million pound scheme is to
begin this week that will see almost 2 thousand Liverpool streets fitted with
new LED lights. A total of 15,000 street lights, serving 1,890 streets, are to
be fitted with the "white light" energy saving bulbs over the next year.
Phase 1 of the ₤7m programme began in Fazakerley, in June 2014, with 12,000
lights changed across 1,800 streets and the second phase is to begin where the
City Council has developed its Home for A Pound scheme.
Liverpool City Council has made the move away from the orange sodium lights in
its drive to make Liverpool a greener City and cut the City's carbon footprint.
Approximately ₤2.6m is spent by Liverpool City Council per annum on the energy
costs associated with running the 57,000 street lights and illuminated signs and
bollards across the City. The upkeep of old street lighting is costly both in
terms of energy consumption and ongoing maintenance costs, and this is money
that could be invested elsewhere as the City Council tackles a 68% cut to its
2010-2020 budget.
Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson said:- "LED street lighting not only
improves the lighting across the City it makes our streets safer and our City
cleaner.
Already through Phase 1 we have made our City a healthier place to live by
saving 1,500 tonnes of carbon emissions and achieved savings of more than
½ a million pounds. Our maintenance costs will also reduce by ₤2.7m
overall over the next 5 years once all of the street lights have been converted.
We can then reinvest this saving in to other key services and communities at a
time when unprecedented cuts are forcing us to make some heart breaking
decisions."
Liverpool City Council is working with SSE Enterprise to roll out the new phase
of LED street lighting.
The implementation programme has identified the oldest street lights to be
replaced 1st and will begin in Webster Road, Wavertree, which is to
feature in a new 3 part Channel 4 documentary, on the:- 'Homes for a Pound
Scheme,' at 9pm, on Wednesday, 14 February 2018.
The Project Manager for SSE Enterprise, John Bate said:- "This is an
exciting opportunity for SSE Enterprise to work in partnership with the Council
to reduce their energy and ongoing cost of its street lighting whilst making a
dramatic improvement to the quality of light for its residents and communities."
This second phase will reduce the energy consumption for these lights by 82%,
cutting the Council's energy bill by a further ₤260,000 a year. There will also
be a reduction in carbon of about 1,300 tonnes, bringing a saving of ₤21,000 and
there will be maintenance savings of approximately ₤47,000 a year.
The LED scheme will heavily reduce the Council's carbon footprint which,
according to recent Government statistics, has already achieved a staggering 18%
reduction in carbon emissions since 2012. And thanks to a number of energy
saving initiatives and investment in renewables, that cut could double to 35% by
2020; far surpassing the 20% target set by the EU Covenant of Mayors, with the
Mayor of Liverpool, saying the City should aim to be the greenest City in the UK.
Since 2012 Liverpool has seen a 550% rise in registered renewable energy
installations (from 589 to 3,131) and has produced 558,000 fewer tonnes of CO2
at a rate of 70,000 tonnes per year; the same volume as 280,000 double decker
buses!
Did you know? The annual programme and further
information about LED lighting can be found
online.
CIOT calls for debate on the uneven Tax burden imposed on employed and self employed labour
RESPONDING to the publication of Good
Work plan, the Government's response to the Taylor Review, John Cullinane, CIOT
Tax Policy Director, said:- "It is to be welcomed that the Government are
taking Taylor's recommendations seriously. However, by ruling out changes to the
rates of National Insurance Contributions (NICs) in relation to employment and
self employment, the Government are denying themselves many of the tools they
need to tackle the issues Taylor identified around employment status. In
addition, they risk ignoring the vulnerability of the Tax base to changing
patterns of work.
The imbalance between the Tax burdens on employment and self employment remains
unsustainably large. No solution will be painless or immediately popular. This
does not mean the problem can be ignored. It means there is a need for full
public debate in which the problem can be clearly explained and we can, as a
society, identify the most promising options and build support among the public.
As we said in the Better Budgets report, 2 there needs to be improved
consultation, in particular ensuring that consultations happen before key
decisions have been made by the Government, if we are to have better Tax policy.
We hope that Government departments, especially the Treasury and BEIS but also
HMRC and DWP, work together to achieve a solution that leads to a more efficient
and less complex Tax system for working people."
Taylor stated that:- 'treating different forms of employment more equally in
the Tax system would be fairer, more economically efficient and support better
quality work.' 3 We agree. It is not clear whether the Government do.
John Cullinane said:- "The big differential between the NICs burden on
employment as compared to self employment, particularly as regards employer's
NIC at 13.8 per cent, creates a perverse incentive for employers to try to
engage with people 'off payroll'. This persists despite efforts to deal with the
situation by successive waves of anti-avoidance legislation."
The Government also said that they want to make it easier for both the workforce
and businesses to understand whether someone is an employee, worker or
self-employed; determining which rights and Tax obligations apply to them.
John Cullinane said:- "This is welcome, but risks missing the wider point
that different statuses apply for employment rights and Tax purposes. We have a
mismatch between having 3 different categories of workers (employed, worker
or 'dependent contractor' and self employed) for employment law but just 2 for
Tax (employed and self employed). As long as the borderlines between different
Tax statuses can be fuzzy and open to interpretation, we are likely to continue
to see confusion and inconsistency among Taxpayers and their employers, and
exploitation of workers in too weak an economic position to resist entering into
work arrangements that HMRC might be expected to challenge."