Pickles defends street light policy
Eric Pickles has defended the right of councils to switch off streetlights, after a report by the Sunday Telegraph found that authorities were saving hundreds of thousands of pounds by switching them off.
He told Murnaghan: “I represent a constituency that’s schizophrenic about this. I have parts of my constituency where I get petitions demanding that street lighting is not put into their area. I think that there is a good point that when you fly over the United Kingdom or all parts of Europe, you can see us lit up in the early hours of the morning. I don’t think it’s a terrible idea to turn off street lighting providing it’s done sensibly, and providing it’s done in places that aren’t subject to high levels of crime.”
The Telegraph’s report found another reason for switching off the lights was to meet carbon emissions targets.