Monmouthshire County Council is to switch off its street lights between midnight and 5am in residential areas of Chepstow from Thursday 28th August as part of a budget saving exercise.
This is part of a wider initiative to save £180,000 on street lighting, which contributes to a budget saving for this financial year of over £9 million.
The policy to switch off street lights in residential areas during the early hours of the morning was approved by the council on 27th February 2014. It was agreed that no lights would be turned off in areas of traffic calming, pedestrian crossings or other high risk pedestrian areas.
The council’s street lighting officers have engaged with county councillors as well as town and community councils to determine the areas where they consider street lights cannot be switched off. Lights have already been turned off in residential areas of Abergavenny and Monmouth and other locations in the county will follow later in the summer.
Monmouthshire’s cabinet member responsible for the county’s street lighting, Cllr Bryan Jones, said: “Until now, we have been able to make significant savings through working more efficiently. But the scale of cuts for this year was such that we can’t avoid making savings that could impact on the communities we serve. I understand entirely that many people won’t like the idea of streetlights being turned off. But we have limited the hours when this will happen and I’m confident that we have done what we can to minimise the impact”.
