Amey’s Edinburgh Street Lighting team have presented the City of Edinburgh Council with three hand paintings of the city scape to celebrate the completion of recent street lighting upgrades.

The paintings which feature locations of where the street lighting works took place, are the creation of artist Sophie Hoggan, who has two sisters that both work on Amey’s street lighting team.

Sophie is a self-taught artist based in Southside Glasgow who works in both ink and acrylic. Her work is based on photographs she has taken on her travels and recreated in her illustrational style. Sophie is an engineer by day and combined with her love of drawing, this has given her an eye for detail and perspective. Sophie does a large amount of commission work and is always thrilled to make something special for someone to capture memories.

Sophie drew inspiration from some of the key areas Amey has delivered work in Edinburgh.  The first painting depicts Melville Street featuring the statue of Robert Viscount Melville with the backdrop of St Mary’s Cathedral and the Market Street lanterns. The second piece is of Princes Street with the backdrop of Edinburgh Castle and the Charlotte Square lanterns and finally the third painting is of the Vennel on the Royal Mile featuring the Sir Walter Scott monument and the Victorian lanterns the team installed. 

Nick Powell, Amey’s Account Director for Street lighting, said: “Working in collaboration with the City of Edinburgh Council has been the key to the success of this contract partnership which started in June 2018. Being able to present the Council with three paintings, created from a member of our team, is a fitting way to mark the completion of this project. Not only to celebrate the benefits the new lighting is bringing to the city but also the lasting impacts of the social value activities the team undertook, embedding them in the heart of local communities.” 

“I hope that for years to come people will enjoy these paintings and remember the works that took place to ensure the lighting solutions were both aesthetically in keeping with the local area and also the carbon savings they bring to the city.”

Working with Currie & Brown, the upgrading and maintenance programme began in June 2018 and has involved more than 55,000 streetlights, approximately 1,600 street lighting column replacements and various auxiliary electrical elements throughout the streets of Edinburgh in Scotland. This street lighting renewal has helped the city reduce CO² emissions in compliance with SEEP (Scotland’s Energy Efficiency Programme) saving the local authority in excess of £54million over a 20-year period.

Councillor Lesley Macinnes, Transport and Environment Convener said: “Our street lighting project will really impact the city, both in terms of lowering our carbon footprint and saving the Council money in electricity costs. We’ve already begun to see the benefits. 

“These pictures encapsulate some of the specialist work that’s gone into the project to retain historic streetlights in our beautiful heritage site – what better way to celebrate the completion of citywide upgrades.”

In addition to installing the most up-to-date LED technology, the team has also installed a dynamic street lighting control management system that allows for centralised, more efficient management of the lighting, reducing the need for people to report faults as these are now being automatically picked up.

(Picture – L-R Alan Simpson, CEC, Transport Manager – Street Lighting & Traffic Signs, Cliff Hutt, CEC, Head of Roads and Infrastructure, Nick Powell, Amey, Account Director for Transport Infrastructure, Christie Hoggan, Amey, sister of artist, Paul Lawrence, CEC, Executive Director Place, Jack Keillor, Currie & Brown, Associate Director, Project Manager for the EESLP and James Marshall, Amey, Senior Principal Operation Manager for EESLP, courtesy Amey)