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Cabinet approves Pembrokeshire black out
10:10am Tuesday 7th October 2008
The future's not bright, the future's not orange after a final decision was made to switch off up to 95% of the county's street lights after midnight.
The move, which is expected to cut over 500 tonnes of carbon emissions and save Pembrokeshire County Council hundreds of thousands of pounds every year, was approved by the council's cabinet yesterday (Monday).
The finer details of exactly where, and by how long, lights will be turned off will be decided by experts, but a council report says that around 95% of Pembrokeshire's street lights may be extinguished between midnight and 5.30am each night.
The report says that lights in town centres and those connected with safety schemes will stay on as normal.
There will also be a phased decommissioning and removal of those streetlights, mainly in rural area, which serve isolated properties and do not comply with the current installation criteria.
At Monday's meeting, Cllr Jamie Adams said that, although the scheme would cost almost £200,000 to implement, it would save more than that amount in each following year.
It would, he said, have the added benefit of reducing the council's carbon footprint, provide better visibility of the night sky and bring "cosmic tourists" to the area.
The plans, which had already been unanimously passed by the council's Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee, were praised by several members, including leader, Cllr John Davies, who told the cabinet that increasing gas and electricity prices were due to cost the county council an extra £2 million every year.
"We are still looking at an extra increase for this authority of £1.8 million," said Cllr David Simpson. "We need to look to the Welsh Assembly for extra funding."
What do you think? Add your comments below.
Your Say YourPembrokeshire
robbchristofferson, pembrokeshire says...
4:34pm Tue 7 Oct 08
Let us hope the lights in the car park of County Hall will be the first to be extinguished. After all, our couty council chiefs are not known for burning the midnight oil!
Council Leader John Davies has shown himself to be the true Pembrokeshire Prince of Darkness... I knew his night would come!
jill wye, St Davids says...
11:10pm Wed 8 Oct 08
Your sayYourPembrokeshire
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johndoe999, Pennar says...
1:36pm Tue 7 Oct 08
In principle I agree that a lot of expensive energy goes to waste but:
1. The plan would only be ingenius if it had been thought of many years ago.
2. I hope they've employed some extra "trained laywers" to cope with the influx of "blame claims" that will surely be coming in from every chancer in the county who now accidentally trips and falls in unlit rural areas of the county on the way home from the pub.