Published: Thursday, 20th November, 2008 12:20pm

Fife Council considers switching lights off to meet green targets

WEST FIFE could be heading for the dark ages as there are proposals to switch off street lights to save money and meet new green targets.

Fife Council wants to trial a switch-off in some areas after warning that rising costs and carbon emissions were 'unsustainable' if they"re to meet environmental demands.

A report admitted that an English county faced 'severe public criticism and scorn' for trying it but the lights could go out from October next year if tests in Fife prove worthwhile.

But Dalgety Bay"s community council chairman, Colin McPhail, said, 'It would only encourage criminals to come into urban areas and break in to houses as they wouldn"t be seen in the dark.

'You would also get thefts of cars from driveways and for people out walking at night, on their way back from a night out or whatever, there could be more personal attacks especially if they"re females.

'Surely Fife Council can make cuts in other areas.'

The council is also proposing pilot schemes to switch the lights off between midnight and 5am, dimming the bulbs to save power and new "white" lights which use lower wattage.

The four test areas are in Glenrothes, Lumphinnans/Lochgelly, Kirkcaldy and St Andrews and councillors will discuss the options today (Thursday) at a meeting.

Councillor Tony Martin, the chair of the council"s environment, enterprise and transportation committee, said, 'To be frank we"re not going to meet our carbon reduction targets unless we do something about street lights.

'There are one or two proposals such as turning them down to save money and in some places maybe turning them off overnight but we recognise this is highly controversial.

'We need to look at it and see what we can do to make sure people still feel safe at night but also not to waste valuable resources.

'It"s not just Fife Council that faces this challenge but we are between a rock and a hard place on this.'

And he added, 'We are already seeing climate change around the world that they reckon is caused by carbon in the atmosphere and we need to do something about it.'

Fife police sounded a warning over the plans, a spokesperson observing, 'Street lighting plays an essential role in crime prevention, road safety and reducing the fear of crime.

'While we appreciate the environmental benefits of these proposals, it is important that the community safety implications of any reduction in street lighting are also fully considered.

'We look forward to taking part in the consultation on these proposals before any measures are implemented.'

Fife has 58,000 street lights but new ones are being added at a rate of more than 1000 a year due to housebuilding.

The cost is currently £1.8 million a year but the council expects electricity charges will increase by 50 per cent when a new contract is negotiated for October 2009.

The council must meet new guidelines – soon to be law and probably enforced by fines for non-compliance – of an 80 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050 and have their own target of a three per cent cut per year.

In 2006-07, street lighting accounted for 9753 tonnes of carbon emissions, 10 per cent of the council"s total.

Derek Crowe, a senior manager in roads and engineering, said in a report, 'Clearly switching lights off will generate far greater carbon savings when compared to dimming.

"However, the negative aspects in relation to public safety and quality of life are hard to ignore.'

But he also said, 'Without challenging the current practices and undertaking some open and transparent trials of modern lighting technology options, the council will not be able to tackle the problem of increasing inventory (number of streetlights), increasing energy consumption and increasing carbon emissions in relation to the street lighting service.'

Fife"s community safety partnership manager, Tim Kendrick, said, 'I"m not uneasy about this as it"s unlikely they would go ahead if it had an impact on community safety.

'If there"s scope for savings at the margins, without making people feel any less safe, it"s certainly something we should be looking at.'

And Councillor Martin continued, 'There are some roads where there are no houses or footpaths that we light all night so why do we do that?

'It seems we"re just lighting them for cars, and that"s appropriate where it"s dangerous, but there are plenty of roads in the countryside that aren"t lit.

'We"ll have to see what happens in the pilots but nothing will be done until we see how it affects people and their communities.'

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