A road of GEC Z5646s in Chelmsford sporting new Telensa Telecells, which since the 1st of September switches them off at midnight and back on at 5am.
Chelmsford has scores of GEC Z5646s, as well as the China-hatted GEC Z5647s, which is in contrast to Clacton which also has the GEC Z564x series, but only in the 80w mercury Z5641 variant.
In early 2010, Essex County Council succeeded in winning £164 million in PFI credits to pursue its street lighting PFI, but a few months later and with a change of government, the money was withdrawn by Whitehall in a Comprehensive Spending Review.
Having had the rug pulled from under its feet, Essex County Council sought other ways of reducing its energy bill, and settled on a £6.6 million capital outlay to replace the photocells on all its street lighting stock with Telensa Telecells and a central computer. This enabled a return to part-night lighting on Essex's streets, for the first time since the 1980s.
A trial switch-off commenced in the largely rural districts of Maldon and Uttlesford in 2007 and after being declared a success, the city of Chelmsford and Braintree town were switched off on September 1st. Colchester and Basildon will follow on November 1st, Clacton will follow on January 1st 2014 (that'll come as a shock to those returning from New Year's Eve parties!) and Harlow's lights will be switched off on February 1st 2014.
Many of you will notice that some of the places on that list - Chelmsford, Basildon, Harlow and Colchester, are quite a contrast to the largely rural districts of Maldon and Uttlesford, and the application of part-night lighting to Essex's biggest towns has caused
an avalanche of newspaper reports, as well as a Facebook group and an online petition.
As an alternative to part-night lighting, and in the absence of a street lighting PFI,
Essex did look at replacing its lighting stock with LED lights out of its own budget, but the cost of the lanterns themselves - put at £31 million (in comparison to the £6.6 million needed for the Telensa Telecells) - meant the scheme was prohibitively expensive.
But I don't mind that, because it means lovely old lights like the GEC Z564x can soldier on for many years to come!