Plans by Cheshire East Council to turn off “a high proportion” of its 40,000 street lights to save money could increase crime and attacks on women, councillors warned.
The council is currently consulting on its budget proposals on plans to reduce the number and timing of street lighting in the borough from September.
Macclesfield Councilor Liz Braithwaite (Lab) said she had serious concerns about turning off the lights.
“Across Macclesfield there is currently a wave of thefts from, and damage to, cars parked on the street. This occurs in the early hours,” she told the highways and transport committee.
“Any decrease in street lighting may aid the criminals.
“And there are also safety issues for those that walk to or cycle to work late at night or early in the morning.”
Crewe councilor Laura Smith (Lab), speaking as a visiting councilor about a notice of motion on safe night-time travel for workers, said: “Lighting on our streets is so important for the safety of people, especially women, and it’s proven that places that are dark and unlit are places where more attacks do happen.”
Cllr Hazel Faddes (Crewe East, Lab) said a number of streetlights had been out for a few weeks where she lived and it was “terrifying” walking the road in the dark.
She said on one occasion carers had not been able to see the path to visit a person they were looking after, ‘so I very much disagreed with any cuts to our streetlights, especially in the urban areas’.
Cllr Phil Williams (Alsager, Lib Dem) suggested if lights had to be switched off it could be targeted to areas where there might be some ecological value in doing so, such as areas of light pollution, “thereby steering it away from urban areas where they have problems with theft and safety”.
Gawsworth councilor Lesley Smetham (Con) said: “In rural parts we don’t have street lighting.”
She said maybe street lighting in critical danger spots or problem areas could continue, but added there are other methods of lighting properties.
Mike Barnett, CEC head of highways, told the committee if the proposal in the budget is approved when it goes to full council at the end of February, “it is about turning off some lights entirely or turning some of the lights off part of the times”.
He said detail of which ones would be switched off and when would depend on factors such as road use, road hierarchy, and added the comments about ecology and light pollution were relevant if it could be done.
“To get to the savings, there would be a high proportion of the 40,000 streetlights we have across the borough that would have to have some form of measure either turned off entirely or part of the time,” he said.
