£250,000 will be invested into upgrading old traffic lights across Harborough and throughout Leicestershire

An extra £250,000 is to be invested into upgrading old traffic lights across Harborough and throughout Leicestershire.

Leicestershire County Council is being handed the money from the Department for Transport’s fund to improve traffic signals.

The council will use the pot of cash to boost reliability and reduce faults to provide longer term maintenance savings.

LED lights will also be retrofitted to some signals to save on energy use.

Cllr Ozzy O’Shea, the council’s cabinet member for highways and transport, said: “Ensuring our traffic lights are well maintained and upgraded as regularly as possible helps us reduce delays caused by faults and keep traffic in Leicestershire moving.

“Reducing congestion helps keep carbon emissions down. “Using the money to continue the replacement of existing traffic signals with LED lights will also reduce energy use by up to 78 per cent, saving on energy costs and further reducing carbon emissions.”

He added: “We have ambitious targets to be carbon neutral as a council by 2030.

“So any way that our highways work can help reach this goal, and make Leicestershire greener, is beneficial.

“We are currently scoping out areas which need their older traffic signals replacing as a priority and will announce areas once they are confirmed.”

The cash injection is part of this year’s Highway Maintenance settlement for English local authorities outside London.

The Government’s £15 million scheme saw over 100 authorities bid for cash to receive funding of up to £500,000.

“As one of the lowest-funded councils in the country it is vital that we continue to take advantage of any Government funding pots being offered – especially when it helps towards the rising cost of vital maintenance work on our busy highways,” added Cllr O’Shea.