Council to make lights out decision

12:04pm Monday 6th October 2008

The decision to switch off around 95% of the county's street lights between midnight and 5.30am is due to be finalised at a cabinet meeting at county hall today (Monday).

Recommendations made by the Director of Transportation and Environment last month include the reduction of burning hours by replacing light sensitive photocells with programmable on-off switches, reprogramming existing time switches and gradual decommissioning of unnecessary lighting.

The switch off periods would exclude town centres and areas where lighting has been installed in connection with safety schemes.

The council says the changes would help continue the councils recent efforts to address climate change, reduce light pollution and reduce carbon emissions as well as reducing the total energy for street lighting bill, which has recently rocketed by 35.78%.

The director told councillors that considerations were made with regards to energy consumption, cost and what he described as "a constant battle maintaining the older infrastructure of street lights".

Commenting on the decision at an Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting last month Cllr Bob Kilmister said: "To have it on through the night [in certain areas] is frankly wasteful and irresponsible.

"In my ward, at around midnight, it often resembles Blackpool with very little activity going on."

Committee Chairman Cllr Peter Stock added: "We have to speculate to accumulate, it is important that this authority invests now because costs will go up. We need to get as efficient as possible, sooner rather than later."