County street lights switch-off 'will cause more crashes' (From Bournemouth Echo)
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County street lights switch-off 'will cause more crashes'
9:00am Saturday 12th January 2013 in News By Melanie Vass
A CONTROVERSIAL policy to switch off street lights across Dorset is “ill-conceived and inflexible,” a councillor has claimed.
The county council is being urged to go back to the drawing board and rethink some aspects of its cost-cutting policy to switch off street lights between midnight and 5.30am.
Liberal Democrat group leader Cllr Janet Dover fears the move will lead to an increase in accidents in Colehill, where the lights are about to be turned off.
She is angry that Colehill’s traffic calming measures will be unlit and accused the county council of ignoring residents.
“It’s ill-conceived, the policy is much too rigid and they are not listening to the residents and making pragmatic compromises,” she said.
“They would only need to keep six lights on to illuminate the traffic calming scheme in Colehill. If they were humps, rather than build-outs, they would keep the lights on but there is no flexibility.”
The policy has also sparked concerns from shift workers, who have to walk to and from work in the dark.
Sam Hart, the group HR manager at Pork Farms in Shaftesbury, said: “Our staff on night and early morning shifts have to walk through the estate in darkness, which they don’t like. They worry about missing their footing and feel it is unsafe.
“Our employees have complained and complained and we have had to tell them it is out of our hands. “We understand the council needs to save money but we wonder why they can’t install motion detectors or something like that.”
Shaftesbury Central Cllr Derek Beer said: “There are three factories in one area of Shaftesbury and it’s intimidating for their night shift workers to have to walk to and from work in pitch darkness.”
The permanent switch-off is currently being rolled out across the county. It affects lights in residential roads and areas deemed “not essential” and is set to save the council £150,000 a year.
Mike Winter, head of highways management at Dorset County Council, said the switch-off did not affect town centres, areas with high crime, roads with high traffic flows or areas with road humps and roundabouts.
“We aim to save a minimum £150,000 a year from the scheme, which will ease pressure on other highways services.
“A link hasn’t been found between part-night streetlighting and crime and we haven’t seen any increases in crime during the early hours of the morning in any of the areas completed so far.”
Comments(19)
Teddy 1
says...
9:21am Sat 12 Jan 13
Old Colonial
says...
10:18am Sat 12 Jan 13
Surely simply buy switching off alternate lights everywhere, the savings would be higher than with this selective hotch-potch approach.
P Barker
says...
10:23am Sat 12 Jan 13
winton50
says...
10:51am Sat 12 Jan 13
Thought not
geoffro
says...
11:11am Sat 12 Jan 13
Capricorn 1
says...
11:28am Sat 12 Jan 13
geoffro wrote:You beat me to it!
cars have lights people have torches what seems to be the problem.I live in a small village no street lights here and yes no crime either we sort it our selves
I have one of those new fangled things called a torch!
Mudefordman
says...
11:43am Sat 12 Jan 13
Capricorn 1
says...
11:52am Sat 12 Jan 13
apm1954
says...
12:09pm Sat 12 Jan 13
PolskiFiat
says...
12:21pm Sat 12 Jan 13
Turtlebay
says...
1:17pm Sat 12 Jan 13
If they are switched off it can be argued in law that the limit could not be ascertained!
The Renegade Master
says...
1:17pm Sat 12 Jan 13
Still, I guess the naysayers wouldn't welcome a possible reduction in their Council Tax charges or extra funding for essential services that this excellent initiative would help pay for!
The other very welcome bonus from switching the lights off is that we could all witness what a starry night looks like with little or no light pollution!
paul.p
says...
1:32pm Sat 12 Jan 13
Letcommonsenseprevail
says...
3:49pm Sat 12 Jan 13
Letcommonsenseprevail
says...
3:50pm Sat 12 Jan 13
Turtlebay wrote:Do you drive around at night with your headlights switched off then?
The only way to tell if a road has a 30MPH limit is if there are regular lamp posts.
If they are switched off it can be argued in law that the limit could not be ascertained!
skydriver
says...
5:42pm Sat 12 Jan 13
This is the will of the people ,it should be our decision NOT a few councillors who believe what they say is right.its our streets not theirs'.
When is it voting time again??!
SeafaringMan
says...
6:14pm Sat 12 Jan 13
Old Colonial wrote:I don't think that this would be possible without a man going around turning off every other light. I imagine that they are all on one circuit.
Why, oh why, do councils always have to do things the hard way, and the one that will cause the most unrest and inconvenience to people? Is it just to show how 'powerful' they think they are?
Surely simply buy switching off alternate lights everywhere, the savings would be higher than with this selective hotch-potch approach.
The Timelord
says...
9:10pm Sat 12 Jan 13
paul.p wrote:Come one - bin collections once every two weeks is quite adequate!
I help pay for street lights and yet the council switch the things off. I help pay for the Police force but they're disappearing too, what's next, 6 monthly bin collections?
Teddy 1 says...
9:20am Sat 12 Jan 13