NEW street lights for Kirklees could help the environment.

Council officials hope to take advantage of a £66m grant from the Government to improve the area’s 51,000 street lamps.

And they hope that as well as improved, safer lighting, they will also be doing their bit for the environment.

The council is in line for the huge grant from the Department of Transport, providing their business plan for the project is accepted.

Kirklees has over 50,000 street lights of which the majority are old-fashioned orange sodium lights.

All this equipment will be improved and fitted with modern technology to ensure significant carbon reductions and energy savings are achieved in the first five years of the contract.

Clr Mehboob Khan, Leader of Kirklees Council, said: “I welcome this invitation from the government.

“This funding would enable us to improve the quality of life of our residents by making our communities feel safer whilst also significantly reducing the carbon impact of the council.

“We estimate that the saving would be in the region of 100,000 tonnes of CO2 over the life of the contract.

“We have learned from the experiences of Leeds and Wakefield councils who have recently undertaken a similar initiative and the evidence has shown that residents feel much safer due to brighter, more energy-efficient white street lighting.

“Over the next few months we will be working with trade unions, partners and staff to strengthen our bid to ensure we have a proposal that is right for our residents and achieves real value for money.

“One of the biggest concerns residents raise with me is the quality of our outdated street lights and I welcome the government’s invitation to work with them to tackle the concerns of local people.”