You lucky people...

[jasperuk]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9173729.stm

Many councils are turning off street lights as a means of saving money, BBC Newsnight has learned. Of 75 councils it spoke to in England and Wales, 32 said they would turn some lights off, nine are dimming lights and 14 considering street light cutbacks.

There are is no statutory obligation for councils to light the streets and flicking the switch is a cost-effective option in a time of austerity cuts.

But a charity is warning it could leave people with sight problems vulnerable.

RP Fighting Blindness, which works with one in 3,000 people who suffer retinitis pigmentosa - or night blindness - said it would put them at risk of street crime.

Newsnight contacted 75 councils in England and Wales and asked if they were scaling back street lighting.

Of those we spoke to 32 said they were turning off some lights, nine were opting for dimming lights, 14 were considering changes while 20 had no plans to alter levels of street lighting.

Below is a full breakdown of the councils we contacted.

COUNCILS TURNING OFF SOME STREET LIGHTS

Dorset

Southwark

Suffolk

Buckinghamshire

North Somerset and Bristol

Nottinghamshire

Powys

Gloucestershire

Bath and North East Somerset

Peterborough City Council

Shropshire

Devon

Rutland County

Telford and Wrekin

Leicestershire

Stockton-on-Tees Borough

South Gloucestershire

Bridgend

Blaenau Gwent

Conwy

Pembrokeshire

Isle of Anglesey

Carmarthenshire

Ceredigion

Newport

Torfaen

Durham

Central Bedfordshire

Borough of Poole

Cornwall

East Sussex

West Sussex

COUNCILS DIMMING SOME STREET LIGHTS

Redcar & Cleveland Borough

Nottingham City Council

Plymouth City Council

Slough Borough

Southampton City Council

Monmouthshire

Hampshire

Lincolnshire

Surrey

COUNCILS CONSIDERING SWITCHING OFF/DIMMING LIGHTS

North Lincolnshire

North Yorkshire

Swindon Borough

Southend-on-Sea Borough

Brent

Neath Port Talbot County Borough

Cardiff

Gwynedd

Derbyshire

Kent

Hertfordshire

Worcestershire

Oxfordshire

Warwickshire

COUNCILS NOT PLANNING CHANGES TO STREET LIGHTING

Northumberland

Portsmouth City Council

Reading Borough

Barking and Dagenham

Stoke-on-Trent City Council

Luton

Conwy

Denbighshire

Milton Keynes

Isle of Wight

Blackpool Borough

Halton

Medway

City of York

East Riding

North East Lincolnshire

Lancashire

Northamptonshire

Cambridgeshire

Cumbria Staffordshire

BBC News - Major street lamp turn off plan for Northamptonshire

Major street lamp turn off plan for Northamptonshire

A scheme to turn off one in two street lamps in Northamptonshire in a bid to save £2m is due to start in May, the county council has announced.

The savings are part of a £73m package of cuts in the council's budget.

Council cabinet member for highways Heather Smith, said: "This isn't about turning off every other light.

"A number of factors are taken into consideration when choosing which lights will be turned off with peoples' safety an obvious priority."

'Saving money'

Ms Smith said: "Budget pressures have meant that the council has had to bring in these changes quickly.

"The idea of turning off street lights has been touted nationally for some time now and increasingly we're seeing authorities around the country turning off street lights as a way of saving money."

It is expected that the switch-off of street lights will be carried out in May and June.

The council said to mitigate the impact of turning off street lights the council will carry out faster repairs on lights, reducing the repair target from the current 28 days to, where possible, 10 days.

It is expected that the programme will be rolled out in Corby, south Northamptonshire, east Northamptonshire, Daventry and Wellingborough in May with work switching to Kettering and Northampton in June.

Examples of where lights could be kept on include areas where there are higher than average numbers of accidents during darkness and at complex junctions, said the council.

[Ursa Major]

Get in there:):p:D:D:hello2:

I live in Devon.

{edit: Im a star forming now, Yey

[acey]

The Newsnight report was done last November so it would be interesting to see what's happened since then.

[twotter]

Most of the LP I get is coming from Peterborough so it will be interesting to see just how much of an effect their turning off some street lights will have.

[Rufusgj]

Typical Milton Keynes council! They cut funding for schools but keep the lights on!

[lukebl]

It's all excellent news, but remember that (some) councils are dimming the lights purely for temporary cost-cutting reasons, not from an altruistic desire to let us see the stars, and the general mass of the population just love the streets to be floodlit. The councils which have realised that they can have super-bright LED streetlights, at a fraction of the running costs of the original ones, are installing them and making things worse for us. As soon as the economy picks up again, they'll be bunging up the light levels.

Sorry to sound so negative, but we all know that it just takes a few paranoid curtain-twitchers to complain about the dangers of unlit street!

[JamesF]

RP Fighting Blindness, which works with one in 3,000 people who suffer retinitis pigmentosa - or night blindness - said it would put them at risk of street crime.

Show me the evidence, or it's just FUD and should be ignored.

James

[northernnutter]

Looks like my luck may be in....for once in my life!

I live in Northampton, and it's definately happening here. Scheduled for june!!

All lights noted for deactivation will be noted with a little red 'not in use' poster.

I keep checking the lights outside my house for these little red beauties, but no sign yet....

Still, all is not lost...the OH works at a printers......

[Hobbes]

The street lights in my immedeate area are due to be replaced this week with the new white light versions but which also have much better shielding. It will be interesting to see if it makes things better or worse.

[acey]

The street lights in my immedeate area are due to be replaced this week with the new white light versions but which also have much better shielding. It will be interesting to see if it makes things better or worse.

If it's anything like my area it will be worse. Full cut-off lighting makes a difference to glare levels within towns but not to darkness levels outside town, because most light pollution is from light reflecting off the ground. The new lamps burn brighter and they often plant more of them, meaning more reflected light reaching the sky. Since the new lighting was installed in my area I've seen a big increase in skyglow at my out-of-town dark site - in fact I now have to drive about twice as far as I used to.

[JB80]

In Belgium, I am sure they are turning more on.

[Hypernova]

Surprise surprise, Cheshire East isn't on either of those lists

[lw24]

In South Glos, most streetlights get turned off at 12:00, shame I have to be in bed by then...

[Sharpiejas]

At least you don't have to put up with looking over the whole of London. I have a deep affinity with moon and don't ask me what a dso is ((

[Adamski]

I'm one of the lucky ones. My local council, South Hams, are playing ball. The street lights in the village get turned off at 2am every night. I just need to remember to set my alarm for 1.30am.

Adamski

[shaunster]

shame in hampshire that before they are dimming they install the new super bright white lights which destroy the night sky...

[Beulah]

LOL - in my county (mentioned in the OP's list), there seems to be no evidence of street light extinguishing judging by the huge light domes from neighbouring towns...

EDIT: it looks like we are in trial mode - if it goes well, it should be rolled out countywide, saving us a quarter of a million pounds from a £700,000 annual bill.

[Collyer911]

ok i gotta say im with you on the benefits of turning off the street lights but,

i can also see why the curtain twitches would be worried we ,ve had are lghts turned off for a while now and as an amatuer stargazer its great for me being outside with no light glare but in my close there has been a burglary and a car vandalism since they switched the lights off at 12 pm and the wife hates it as we work shifts and she has to drive through the village in the pitch black.

[JamesF]

in my close there has been a burglary and a car vandalism since they switched the lights off at 12 pm

Of course those might well have happened if the lights had been on, or even in broad daylight. In my experience of burglaries around here (which is thankfully very few), the burglars really don't give a monkeys about lighting -- if anything it just makes things easier for them because they don't have to "work" in the dark.

What they don't like is noise, because that attracts attention.

James