Temporary lights on Bridge Road in Exeter tonight

Bridge Road in Exeter will be reduced to one lane tonight (Thursday 9 February) with temporary traffic lights in place overnight from 11pm to 5am.

The lane closure is needed while work is carried out on the new streetlights on the downstream side of Countess Wear Bridge which may need to have ‘shields’ fitted to the back of them, to ensure that the light they provide is limited to the highway and does not cause light pollution to the river and the outside of the bridge. Bats roosting within the bridge structure are currently hibernating and, as a legally protected species, their sensitivity to light has to be considered in the streetlight design.

The temporary traffic lights will provide the contractor and the project ecologist with the working space to evaluate the size, shape and height of various shield designs, with the aim of avoiding light pollution. The shields can then be fabricated and fitted before the bats come out of hibernation in the springtime.

If work is completed before 5am, the temporary traffic lights will be removed as soon as possible.