Essex County Council turning streetlights off

Plug pulled on all-night lighting
A council is pulling the plug on its practice of keeping street lighting on all night long to help reduce light pollution and to conserve energy.

Street lights controlled by Essex County Council will be switched off between midnight and 0500 GMT in places where it feels it is appropriate.

The council said it was "clearly appropriate" for all night lighting to remain in certain limited areas.

A number of pilot areas have been earmarked for the new approach.

The council funds the majority of street lighting across Essex, which is about 120,000 lights.

The annual energy consumption of this facility is 44 million kilowatt hours of electricity, producing 19,000 tonnes of carbon emissions.

Road safety

Councillor Rodney Bass said: "We take very seriously our responsibility to take local action on global environmental issues.

"We encourage residents to think about the impact of their personal actions and we expect our staff to be equally responsible about saving energy.

"Now we are thinking more fundamentally about how our policies across the council affect the environment."

Essex Police said in a statement: "The council has given a clear undertaking to consult with police on a case-by-case basis as to whether switching off lights will have an impact on crime and disorder or on road policing and road safety.

"Lighting can have a positive impact on reducing crime and reducing the fear of crime."

Cool! Let's hope this project reaps the benefits and other councils follow - then perhaps we'll see Counties here do the same.

I'd love to see this come in to force over here...

Is it true that a lot of the light just go's straight up from streetlights...
one would think it would be imperitave to direct close to 100& downwards?!

I mean..imperative :oops:

This is great news ! You know, I can see in a few years time, with the cost of energy rising ever more, not enough invested to reap the rewards of renewable energy yet, the only thing in this world that talks is money, at least this is yet another move to add to the list, in future this could be normal practice.

Now if 'paddyland' was'nt so ignorant, we Irish have got to be some of the worst in the world to embrace change, sorry for the rant, but we are so backward compared to our european cousins.

Keith..