1 October 2012 
3 Minute Read Street furniture comes in many different shapes, sizes and with many different uses too. Most people will be unfamiliar with the term and may not be quite sure what is meant. In simple terms therefore, street furniture is a collective term used to describe the various kinds of installations found on any street. This includes things like street lighting, rubbish bins and street benches, for example. Some street may have few if any such items, while other streets may be filled to capacity with a dizzying variety of street furniture.
Bins are perhaps one of the most common types of street furniture to be found in an average street. Bins have a practical purpose, they are usually designed to be attractive, often in bright colours so they are easy to identify at a distance, and they help to keep our streets clean and tidy by providing people with somewhere to deposit their litter. Bins require emptying from time to time, of course, but it works out to be more cost effective and cleaner to have them rather than not have them in our city streets.
Other types of street furniture include things like street illumination. This usually takes the form of street lights that are suspended on the tops of long tall structures designed to hold the lights up high for the maximum illumination effect. Traffic signs can also be considered street furniture. They are essential for telling drivers where to go, what to do and what not to do, but in effect, they are part of the general street furniture that we encounter every day.
Street benches are common and very popular too. They are often donated by someone in their will, which is why our typical street bench can often have a small brass plaque with the name of the person who made the donation that paid for the erection of the bench. Street benches are used by anyone who simply wishes to stop a moment and sit while watching the world go by. They may be more common in our parks, but they serve a similar and equally popular purpose in our streets as yet another form of street furniture.
Street furniture is a term that covers all the many items that we find on our streets and pavements. Some are essential and necessary, others are more decorative, but usually still useful in some way. Most of the items of street furniture we take for granted without a thought, but we need them, more often than not, and we would definitely miss them if they were not there.