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County council defends lights out scheme
BUCKS County Council has defended itself against claims that it is putting lives at risk by turning off thousands of street lights in the county.
Last summer, the county council introduced the first phase of a three-year trial to turn off 1,700 street lights in areas including the Nash Lee roundabout and the South Street roundabout on the Wendover bypass.
The council has been criticised this week in the national press by police leaders and motoring organisations who believe the council is increasing the risk of road traffic accidents.
But the council has said that road traffic accidents have actually decreased in sites they have monitored since the lights were switched off.
A spokesperson for Bucks County Council said: "We have done this in consultation with community safety police and local residents. We have selected sites which are low risk and have also put in mitigation such as solar road studs, extra signs and lines.
"It is an experiment which we are monitoring over the next three years. In seven sites monitored there were a total of seven collisions between August and December 2006 when lights were on and only three in total between August and December 2007 when lights were off."
Bucks CC's cabinet member for transport, Val Letheren, said: "Carbon emissions, light pollution and energy usage are issues that we cannot ignore and will not go away.
"We have a duty to explore new ways of making our roads safe and today's technology offers viable alternatives to lighting which we feel are worth investigating further.
"This is a trial, and after three years we can take an objective view of the scheme and consider our options. All the sites involved will be carefully monitored and the streetlight columns will remain in place until the trial is completed.
Last year, rural campaigners in Bucks welcomed the move to switch off street lighting in areas of the county.
The chairman of the Bucks branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, Peter Cleasby, said the move was a small step but one that should be welcomed.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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