Late night street lighting to go off in Midlands council cuts

But cash-strapped authorities are now planning to turn off the lights after midnight, potentially plunging parts of the West Midlands into darkness, as they try to save money.

Staffordshire County Council is working on a 'partial night time switch off'?? that could save it as much as £100,000 a year.

And Dudley Council is planning to turn off lights in some parts of the borough after midnight from 2016 to save a similar amount.

The councils will be hoping it makes little difference to most people who would already be home and in bed between midnight and 5am.

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Details of Dudley'??s plans will save it £100,000 a year from 2016.

This will come on top of £34 million worth of cuts it will have had to make by then following reductions in Government funding.

Councillor Khurshid Ahmed, the council's transportation boss, said: "??We have put forward a proposal to save £100,000 in 2016/17 by switching off some of the street lighting in quieter areas of the borough.

"??We are facing significant reductions in funding from central government with unprecedented savings needing to be made locally.

"??However, we are also investing heavily in new technology to help improve our street lighting and save money over the longer term including being able to monitor and control them centrally as well as replacing old and outdated lights with new brighter and more energy efficient ones. Rest assured, we will regularly monitor areas affected and people'??s safety will remain our top priority with any future decisions on street lighting."

Staffordshire County Council is planning to have to cope with the rising cost of electricity and estimates the price for lighting the roads could go up by 10 per cent a year.

Its budget plans, proposing £102 million of cuts over five years, reveal a 'detailed review of current service levels of street lighting focussing on potential part night switch off'??.

County councillor Simon Tagg said: "We are committed to providing the best value for money for our taxpayers while making sure people can access high quality services.

"??Reducing the use of street lighting between midnight and 5am, in certain areas, can benefit local communities and present good opportunities to make savings which can be reinvested in other services.

"??We will be exploring the possibility of doing this in areas where appropriate, following an assessment on the impact of road and community safety."

Last year 25 towns and villages expressed an interest via parish councils in a scheme to turn lights off between midnight and dawn, with an annual saving of around £7 per light.

The county council spends up to £9 million a year on street lighting across Staffordshire and looks after around 107,000 lamps. Not everyone is convinced that it will work. Essington councillor David Clifft, who chairs the parish council, is worried it will increase problems with crime.

"??We'??ve had three shop robberies recently,"? he said: "??I'??ve been asking for lighting to be improved around shopping areas, not scaled back everywhere else. It could easily create more cost if it results in more crime and vandalism."

Other councils in Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Walsall, despite facing multi-million pound cuts and thousands of job losses between them, are not following suit with lighting cutbacks.

In Wolverhampton and Walsall the councils are gradually replacing old street lights with low energy, modern light-emitting diode (LED) ones that cost less. Areas such as Sandringham Road, in Penn, were upgraded in 2012.

In Walsall, lights were turned down on the A453 Aldridge Road between midnight and 5am as part of a month-long pilot scheme, as a trial. But it abandoned the idea last year and has no plans to bring it back.

Councillor Mike Bird, Conservative leader of Walsall Council, said: "??What we generally find is that most people are happy as long as you empty the bins, clean the streets and make sure the lights work. We don't want to change that.

"We ran trials of turning lights off and they weren'??t well received. Instead, whenever we need to replace lights we use LEDs which cost less in electricity.

"The problem we have had is some people have complained that these new ones don'??t shine light on their gardens the way the old ones did.

"But it's our job to light the highway and the footpath, not people's gardens."?

Wolverhampton City Council has to save £123 million over five years and will axe up to 2,000 jobs. It is even prepared to hike its parking charges and to install cameras on bus lanes to use the fines from drivers who break the rules to supplement the highways budget.

But it has so far ruled out turning lights off after dark, although it does use LED ones to replace old street lamps. The lights can also be more spaced out as the LEDs are brighter than the orange ones they are replacing.

Sandwell Council is also not considering a switch off, despite its own £120m of cuts by 2016.

Councillor Mahboob Hussain said: "We are determined to protect frontline services, including street lights.

"??Although finances are difficult at the moment we have no plans to turn off lights after midnight."