Lighting Group

Malvern’s Gas Lamps

The Council’s newly refurbished gas lamps may be returning close to your property. These have been remanufactured by a local company, Sight Designs Ltd. together with the community environmental group, Transition Malvern Hills. They have been brought into the 21st Century with the following improvements:

• New efficient burners
• Automatic operation
• Electronic Ignition
• Near Zero light pollution
• Reflectors optimised for location
• Brighter Light
• Uses Much Less Gas
• Far Lower Maintenance Costs
• 80% Smaller Carbon Footprint

If you have any questions or comments about the lamps, please email us on transition.gasketeers@gmail.com or call and leave a message on 01684 892581 

We are also asking for local residents to volunteer to be Gas Lamp Guardians to keep an eye on and perhaps look after their local lamps. Please contact us for more information.

Thank you

Previous articles on the subject...

Tackling the carbon and financial cost of Malvern's gas lamps

The Transition Lighting Group has been working for the last five months gathering data - surveying all the gas lamps, researching the subject, developing and testing hardware, and interacting with international experts to achieve the optimum results.

The aim is to retain, refurbish and improve the light output of the gas lamps while drastically reducing their maintenance cost, gas consumption, carbon footprint, and also the light pollution (stray light blocking out the night sky). See the letter below.

Immediately following the first public presentation of the group's solution on Thursday 18th November, BBC Hereford and Worcester did a feature on its breakfast show. Available on BBC iPlayer for the following week - our pieces are at just past 7am and 8am which is roughly 1 and 2 hours into the programme, both lasting 5 minutes. You can also listen online or via your music device with  the two MP3 files here - Part One, Part Two - these may take a little while to start as they are relatively large files.

BBC One Midlands Today TV news picked this up on Monday 22nd - see the YouTube clip (about 2 minutes).

And now also on the BBC News website, with a 90 second clip giving some more detail of our approach.

A quick summary

Here's a quick summary from the presentation on 18th November, written by the website editor:

• Five month detailed survey undertaken of the 104 gas lamps spread across several parish council areas, including Malvern Wells, West Malvern and Malvern Town.
• The lamps are thought to have been the inspiration behind the famous 'behind the wardrobe' scenes in CS Lewis' Narnia books and are 'listed' as of historic importance.
• The current financial costs of running the lamps and keeping them in good order are high and in dispute between the District and parish/town councils. When surveyed, only 3 were preforming well, many only providing a glimmer of light.
• Average gas savings of 84% identified, using more efficient burners, electronic ignition and timing. (Most lamps would go from current 4 burners/mantles to 2 with improved light output overall.)
• Correct installation and electronics reduce regular maintenance to once a year.
• Internal reflectors to minimise light pollution (light illuminating buildings, trees, etc. outside the desired area and ruining views of the night sky), carefully positioned so as not to impact on the look of the lanterns.
• Individual setting up for all lamps, to be discussed with the relevant parish councils and local residents - every location is different.
• Implementation programme being developed.
• The possibility of running the lamps on biogas is being actively pursued.
• We have discovered that we can almost match the cost of running a sodium streetlight.

Gas lamps get the Transition treatment

The following letter has appeared in the Malvern Gazette, 17th September, on the continuing story of the various costs (and possible benefits) of the gas lamps dotted around Malvern.

Light is shed on gas work

Transition Malvern Hills Gaslight Team would like to offer reassurance about the gas lamp situation in Malvern. We have been working for the last 4 months to provide technical etc advice to the local councils.

A team of four local experts in Electro-Optics, Light Pollution, IT, and History have gathered data using laser ranging, light meters, night photography, video, geo-location and GPS mapping. Details including illumination on the path and wasted light pollution were also considered. This has been consolidated into a large interactive database that identifies the key problems lamp by lamp. In addition initial paper research here and abroad (Germany, USA, India etc) has highlighted some equipment savings and major savings in gas consumption.

Being a member of the Joint Council Gas Lamp Working Group, this interim data was presented at our last meeting in mid July, as was our need to continue research that would be finally reported at the next meeting. No notification of that meeting or minutes of the last meeting have been received. With surprise we read in last week’s Gazette of the premature MHDC £200,000 ultimatum to the town and parish councils that takes no account of our progressing work.

We are now close to proposing a plan for no expensive maintenance, an increase in useful light, a gas reduction of 80% (£15,000 to £2,000) and a reduction to the refurbishment cost of 75% (£200,000 to £50,000). A further week’s study on various hardware, in collaboration with a visiting independent specialist from Dusseldorf, should verify these savings.

This activity by Transition Malvern Hills is at no cost. However using standard consultancy rates, we should have charged around £10,000 – to date.

Incidentally, the gas lamps will also become virtually zero carbon so removing environmental concerns and assisting the councils CO2 commitments.

Brian Harper

Transition Malvern Hills Energy Group

Link to the Gazette article referred to above, re MHDC 'ultimatum'