LED lights make shopping centre ‘safer’

A Northamptonshire shopping centre could get LED lights in a bid to make its car park safer.

Swansgate Shopping Centre, in Wellingborough, is due to undergo refurbishment in April and council officials have earmarked £297,000 for LED lights.

The funds will be used to replace traditional bulbs with LED lamps to give a better quality of light.

John Bailey, resources committee chairman for Wellingborough Council, explained that the innovative lights will have an impact on safety.

“The lighting is deemed to be below standard now, and I think people felt that we didn’t want it to be dangerous for women to go in there after dark,” he told the Evening Telegraph.

“Apparently it is very dark in there at the moment, and I think we have had cases of hooligans congregating in there. If the place was better lit then that would tend to reduce that sort of thing.”

Elsewhere, the California Lighting Technology Center recently installed LED lights in a car park which are activated only when they sense motion.