Bristol City Council expects to spend almost half a million pounds maintaining the city’s traffic lights this year, new figures show.

And the council will spend some £200,000 just on electricity to power the 336 traffic light sites in the city.

The number of junctions in Bristol with traffic lights at them has risen by 68% – from 200 to 336 – in just eight years, according to the official figures.

The details were released by the city council’s transport office under a Freedom of Information Act request by local campaigner Charlotte Leslie, also the prospective Parliamentary candidate for Bristol North West.

The request has revealed that the budget for traffic light maintenance has risen steadily over the past few years, now standing at £485,000 for 2009/10 – more than £1,400 per site.

Ms Leslie, a resident of Westbury-on-Trym, supported the Bristol Evening Post’s campaign, and the subsequent decision by Bristol City Council, to trial a temporary switch off of designated traffic lights around the city.She said:

“I’ve been supporting the Evening Post’s powerful campaign to Turn Out That Light, all the way. No one is saying that safety should be jeopardized by a drastic cut to the number of traffic lights on our roads, but the explosion in unnecessary traffic lights – and the cost to the Bristol tax-payer – has become absurd.

“Reducing the number of cars with growling engines, stuck at lights, not only has environmental benefits in terms of petrol consumption, it will also ease traffic flow so that buses can be more punctual.

“ The experiment in Portishead shows that people are generally can be trusted to keep the traffic flowing without the need of endless traffic lights. Since traffic lights cost a substantial amount from the public purse, and have a dramatic effect on the daily lives of residents, I’d like to see more public involvement in where traffic lights are placed, and more transparency as to the benefits and reasons.
“It’s great that the Council has acted so quickly on the Evening Post’s superb campaign. The figures revealed today just show how much these changes could start saving the Bristol tax-payer. “

The figures released by the city council show that at the end of 2000 there were 200 traffic light sites around Bristol. By the end of 2008, this figure had risen to 336.

Ms Leslie called for better planning in the future, to put a stop to the excessive numbers of lights in the city. She said:

“Bristol has seen some great developments in recent years but the highways policy seems to have been done piecemeal. Now we are left with a road system which lacks fluidity.

“I’d like to see transport planners in the future really thinking about where traffic lights are put, using their imagination to make our roads safer and more efficient for everyone.”