We were appointed as the asset management contractor for Sunderland City Council’s street lighting and highway signs PFI project.
Trading as Aurora, a subsidiary company of Balfour Beatty Group, we worked in partnership with Sunderland City Council to deliver an initial five-year core investment programme, where we replaced 31,120 street lighting columns and 4,600 highway signs before transitioning to a 20-year term maintenance programme.
As part of the term maintenance programme, we are investing in a more efficient approach to deliver high-profile public realm projects within the city. This includes street lighting maintenance to replace lamps before failure, the installation of feature columns in Keel Square City Centre to accommodate various lanterns, projectors, CCTV and event lighting, as well as installing 31 colour-changing LED strip lights and floodlights to illuminate the Magistrates building.
Festive lighting
Aurora also supports Sunderland City Council on its festive illuminations each year by installing, maintaining and decommissioning city-wide festive decorations. In addition, our team supports various annual events such as the Sunderland Illuminations, Art of the Possible and Houghton Feast.
LED Replacement
In 2016, Aurora began installing low-energy LED lanterns in over 50,000 street lighting units throughout Sunderland. This project is now in its final stages and has delivered significant energy savings and reduction in carbon footprint.
