ENERGY-SAVING street lights, better electricity meters and a live graph of power use in council buildings - those are some of the measures proposed by York's new "energy champion".

The Liberal Democrat administration on City of York Council has pledged to tackle the issues of climate change, energy efficiency and reducing CO2 emissions.

The council's energy champion, Christian Vassie, has already proposed a number of ideas to make York a greener place.

One is a scheme to introduce energy-saving lighting for the city's streets, with an initial pilot suggested for the ecoDepot.

"I am looking into a pilot scheme to reduce the energy consumption of street lights," said Coun Vassie.

"We could reduce the energy demand of new bulbs by around 20 per cent.

"When you think we spend well over £600,000 per year on lighting our streets, the potential savings are considerable. There are also obvious benefits from introducing practical measures to reduce CO2 emissions."

Another idea Coun Vassie is investigating with officers involves introducing intelligent metering to council offices. "I bought an intelligent metering device, costing just £70, last year for my family home. Within two hours of setting the machine up, the whole family had an understanding of how we were using electricity."

The same principle could be applied to council offices. For just a few hundred pounds the total electricty use of the Guildhall could be measured every ten minutes and displayed as a graph to all staff.

"The key is having real data," Coun Vassie said. "It is not enough to put stickers on light switches reminding people to switch off when they leave the room. We need all need feedback to see how changing behaviour cuts CO2 emissions, and saves money. With intelligent metering all staff will be able to see the impact of changing the way they operate, giving us the potential to save both money and energy."

Coun Vassie said: "Politicians from all the parties in York now need to work together to take action on the environment. York has already made good progress in the past few years on recycling, on the construction of the ecoDepot, on the introduction of the car club, and cheaper parking for low-emission vehicles. It is vital the council continues this work."