Teignmouth’s long-awaited seafront illuminations are a step closer, after Devon’s highways department gave the town council’s plans the green light.

Mock-up designs have already been created for a salmon and anchor motif to adorn the 40 lighting columns along the seafront.

Teignmouth town council has also earmarked £60,000 to pay for the lights to be made and installed.

But Devon County Council has been unable to approve the technical specifications for the scheme while its highways department was in the process of drawing up a new policy on decorative street lighting. Teignmouth has been waiting for this hurdle to be cleared since March 2025.

On Tuesday, June 9, Teignmouth’s town clerk Iain Wedlake told the town council the highways department had finally given the go-ahead.

He said he can now ask the lighting company to make the necessary modifications to its designs so that the final versions, and the pricing, can be agreed by the town council.

The next step will be seeking planning permission from Teignbridge District Council, which could be granted within about two months from the application date.

Once this is agreed, the installation of the lights can be completed by contractors. The lamp posts are already fitted with electricity boxes to power the lights.

Iain said it’s too soon to give a definite timeline for when Teignmouth’s seafront will be lit up once again, but he is ‘quite optimistic’ that progress will be much quicker now: “We’ve already done a lot of the work, the infrastructure is already there, so I think we’re in a pretty good place.”

Teignmouth has been without its seafront lights since October 2021 when the county council removed them for safety reasons. The town council has been working to replace them ever since.