6 Sept 2006

Street lighting: turn off after 1.00am?

In my August 9th Blog I raised the issue of street lighting after Randwick Parish mentioned that it might be worth exploring turning lights off late at night.

On Monday the cabinet at Gloucestershire County Council endorsed the view that they should investigate street lighting reduction. Cllr Stan Waddington has already discussed this with the environment officers responsible and they have identified a unit that would switch lights off after say midnight and switch them back on again for the morning. They are also looking at dimmers for applications where switching lights off would not be appropriate.

Before implementation of a scheme they note the need to consult, initially with the Police to gauge their reaction both on Community and road safety grounds - then a public
consultation exercise as there are bound to be strong opinions in both directions. They are aware of Randwick's possible interest in exploring this further.

Essex is one step ahead of us having already undertaken public consultation. The plans in Essex are set to save the council a whopping £1million a year from its £3.8million electricity bill for street lighting and reduce the 19,000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year. The fact that the response was very positive from the public augurs well for Gloucestershire.

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