A petition calling on Canterbury City Council to act has been launched by the Canterbury Society and will be formally presented to Cllr Alan Baldock, Leader of the Council.
The Canterbury Society writes:
Canterbury’s distinctive cast-iron streetlights – many still stamped with the old Canterbury City Corporation crest – are under threat. Kent County Council (KCC) is condemning these historic columns and intends to replace them with generic steel poles fitted with standardised ‘heritage-style’ embellishments. These streetlights are not being lost because of a single bad decision, a sudden safety issue, or a lack of money. They are being lost, in part, because Canterbury City Council does not have a clear, adopted streetscape or public realm policy for its historic areas.
In the absence of that framework, decisions about the city’s everyday fabric – street lighting, paving, materials and detailing – are being taken piecemeal, scheme by scheme, often by default rather than by design. That is the nub of the issue. Residents and heritage groups, including the Canterbury Society, the Alliance of Canterbury Residents Associations (ACRA) and the Oaten Hill and South Canterbury Association (OHSCA), are calling on Canterbury City Council to put clear controls and guidance in place, including the use of an emergency Article 4 Direction where appropriate, to protect these features before they are lost.
These elegant cast-iron columns are a unique part of Canterbury’s civic and industrial heritage. They were produced by H.M. Biggleston & Sons, a Canterbury ironworks founded in 1835 and located in the heart of the city. The firm supplied lamp posts to the City for nearly 130 years and, from 1908, became a leading manufacturer of electric street lighting equipment, supplying fittings across Britain and overseas. The foundry finally closed in 1963, but replica Biggleston-style columns continued to be installed and repaired in Canterbury well into the 21st century – with examples recorded as recently as 2023.
David Kemsley Business Secretary, Alliance of Canterbury Residents Associations (ACRA) [said] ‘These lamp columns are as much a part of Canterbury’s story as its walls or gates, — they are a tangible links to a Canterbury firm whose craftsmanship literally helped light cities across the world. To replace them with mass-produced steel poles is cultural vandalism.’
As a World Heritage City, Canterbury has a statutory duty to protect not just landmark buildings, but the wider streetscape that forms their setting. While KCC carries out highway works under its statutory powers, Canterbury City Council is responsible for planning, conservation and setting the standards that guide what replacement should look like in historic areas. Under planning law, CCC can issue an emergency Article 4 Direction to withdraw permitted development rights for the replacement or alteration of street lighting within the city’s Conservation Areas. This would bring such works under planning control and require formal permission for any future replacements – ensuring consistency and heritage-appropriate design.
Guy Mayhew Deputy Chair, Canterbury Society [said] ‘Kent County Council maintains street lighting and replaces columns when they fail….
…where Canterbury City Council has not set clear streetscape standards for conservation areas, replacements default to generic solutions under permitted development, rather than being guided by a coherent local framework.’
Residents can already see the consequences. In some locations, particularly within City Council-led £20m Levelling Up Fund projects, cast-iron columns are being repainted or replicated as valued heritage assets. In nearby streets, identical columns are being removed or replaced, while temporary steel columns installed years ago remain unresolved. Design quality varies from street to street, with no clear rationale. This is exactly what happens when there is no agreed framework to guide decisions.
The campaign is not calling for blanket retention or unlimited spending. It is asking Canterbury City Council, as Local Planning Authority, to do what only it can do: put in place clear streetscape and public realm guidance for historic areas, treat heritage street furniture as an asset rather than an inconvenience, and ensure that like-for-like repair or genuinely appropriate replica replacement becomes the default. Decisions should be consistent, transparent and deliberate, not ad-hoc.
An emergency Article 4 Direction is one possible tool, but it is not the core issue. Until the policy gap is filled, the same piecemeal losses will continue, not just to streetlights but to paving, lighting character and other elements of the public realm. A petition calling on Canterbury City Council to act has been launched by the Canterbury Society and will be formally presented to Cllr Alan Baldock, Leader of the Council.
