Residents fear as Council plans to turn off more lights

Shropshire Council set up ‘part-night lighting’ in April this year. They now plan to switch 12,500 of the county’s 18,500 street lights to part night lighting by next year in an attempt to save energy. The lights will be off from midnight till 5:30am and 7,000 of the lights are already converted.

The council has said that the lights at dangerous road junctions, sheltered housing schemes or areas likely to have anti-social behaviour will not be considered for part-night lighting. Lights in the south Shropshire and Shrewsbury areas have already been converted with north Shropshire and Bridgnorth set to follow by the end of April.

However, protesters are demanding that the lights are put back on during the night. They say that the lack of lighting is putting people in danger as people are walking home in the dark after a night out despite councillors saying there has been no rise in crime since the lights went out in April.

18 year old Jordan Bradbury set up the Relight Oswestry campaign. She said that she understands the need to save money and energy but that turning out the lights was too dangerous and Oswestry’s mayor supported the campaign in a town council meeting. Miss Bradbury added:

Although the mayor was quite supportive, I was told they wouldn’t be putting the lights back on the agenda. I’m writing to the mayor today about this because he needs to know how many people are saying they’re a bit upset about the decision. We’ve got a Facebook page as well now and people are still not happy, but they really need to write to the council about it as well as signing the petition and commenting on the Facebook page.

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