‘YOUR LOCAL LDC IS YOUR ILP “EYES AND EARS” ON THE GROUND’

By Lindsey McPhillips

We are one of the smaller LDCs but nevertheless do, I feel, have a very important role in that we keep Scotland on the map when it comes to lighting professionals.

Geographically, because we’re stuck up out of the way a bit, ILP members in Scotland don’t tend to get much of a chance to go to events down south, so it is really valuable to be able to keep lighting engineers here in touch with the industry.

At the same time, I feel passionate about the need to be keeping in touch with each other. It is really important that, as lighting engineers or designers, as manufacturers or specifiers, we keep talking to each other.

So, LDC Scotland is very much a forum for people to approach and get to know each other, to ask if there’s anything they would like to learn more about. Or if there’s something if they’re not quite sure about, perhaps we can get some technical papers or to even get an event set up for them. We can also of course help if members want to raise anything with the ILP in Rugby as well.

I’d say the vast majority of our events are focused on exterior lighting, probably about 90%. But we do at our technical events encourage other people to attend, not just local authorities, but manufacturers, suppliers as well; we’re keen of course to engage with ILP lighting design members in Scotland too.

Because of Covid, a lot of our activity has, naturally, been online for the last three years. Going forward, we are hoping that that will change during 2023. In fact, we are planning to have a face-to-face technical session, probably in May (though the date has yet to be fully confirmed) which will be an all-day event. The aim is to have four technical papers presented as well as some sort of social/networking element.

We do have some vacancies on our committee and so, if you are interested, please do get in touch to find out how you can help!

I’ve always been a member of the ILP, ever since I started in street lighting. Ultimately, the ILP keeps us all up to date on technical issues or anything that you need to know that is coming along – and your local LDC is your ILP ‘eyes and ears’ on the ground. So please use us!

Lindsey McPhillips is chair of LDC Scotland and senior street lighting engineer, Street Lighting Operations, City of Edinburgh Council

Keep an eye out for details of LDC Scotland’s upcoming face-to-face technical, probably in early May. Go to https:// theilp.org.uk/branch/ilp-scotland/ for more details

WHO’S WHO

Lisa Chiles, past chair