Lightbulb moment!

Council discovers turning street lamps OFF encourages burglars

‘Residents have paid the price’

TOWN hall bosses who switched off street lights at night to save money have been forced to reverse the decision after burglaries more than doubled in a year.

Leicestershire Police asked council chiefs to switch the lights back on in Oadby while they investigate the increase.

The force said there had been 27 burglaries in the town in September and October, compared with 12 during the same period last year.

The county council began a fouryear programme to introduce ‘partnight lighting’ in 157 areas of Leicestershire in 2010, switching off or dimming some street lights between midnight and 5.30am to save money.

But after the police intervention, the lights will be back on through the night in Oadby until January. The decision will then be reviewed. Jeff Kaufman, a Liberal Democrat county councillor in Oadby, said the party had warned that the crime rate could go up if there was not adequate lighting.

He added: ‘They failed to listen and now local residents have paid the price. Hopefully the lesson has now been learnt and from now on the Tories will prioritise our safety rather than their savings.’

Blake Pain, from Leicestershire County Council, said: ‘We have worked closely with the police throughout the part-night project and when specific issues are raised we do review them. ‘To support the police, we

will be switching the street

lights back on overnight across Oadby until January, after which we will review with the police the possibility of reverting back to partnight lighting.’

When the authority introduced part-night lighting, it said that as well as saving money, the measure would also reduce light pollution and carbon emissions. The Toryled council has always insisted there was no connection between turning off street lighting and rising crime.

An analysis of the programme in 2014 found crime levels fell both in areas that had become part- lit and where there had been no change in street lighting, but the decrease was bigger in part-lit areas.

Leicestershire County Council said around 36,500 lights were switched off overnight under the scheme, out of a total of 68,000. It is estimated to save the authority around £900,000 a year.

Earlier this year, figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats showed 85 per cent of councils in the country were dimming or switching off some lights to save cash, up from 75 per cent three years ago.

In September last year, a teenager was sexually assaulted in Ramsgate, Kent, after she was grabbed beneath a street light the council had switched off to save money and cut carbon emissions.

Lillian Constantine, 18, was able to film Ashraf Miah on her mobile phone, helping police to identify him. Miah, 34, was later jailed for 13 and a half years. Miss Constantine waived her right to anonymity to urge other sex- crime victims to come forward.

Earlier this year, the AA said there had been 11 deaths on roads where lights had been switched off.

SURPRISE, surprise, when a council in Leicestershire turned the street lights off to save money, burglary doubled. Any resident or beat bobby could have told them that would happen, but they did it anyway. The word ‘dim’ springs to mind.