The decision by Essex County Council to switch-off street lights at midnight is to be raised in the House of Commons this morning by Colchester MP Sir Bob Russell.
Liberal Democrat Sir Bob has had his name drawn for this morning?s Questions to the Secretary of State for Transport ? and he has said that he will be asking about the road safety consequences for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians because of the black-out.
Sir Bob ? who is a former Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Road Safety Group ? has tried to get Essex County Council to alter its policy, but the Council has refused to do so.
Essex Street Lights Switch-off To Be Raised In Commons
October
23
19 comments
The Green and Rochford District Residents Group believe that there is £30K saved in the budget from over budget provisions that we challenged (not cuts in services) to allow RDC to pay ECC for every other light to be turned back on. How? Just write to the CEO, amar.dave@rochford.gov.uk, to ask for this in the Public Budget Consultation.
Now THAT’S interesting! Nice work.
“Street lights provide safety for all, so will the Minister responsible for Road Safety confirm that turning off street lights at midnight results in added road safety risks for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians?”
That was the question I put during Transport Questions in the House of Commons on Thursday.
I was confident that the answer must be “yes” – but to my amazement the Minister (MP for Scarborough and Whitby, Yorkshire), said “some local authorities have shown that switching off the lights does not detract from road safety.”
This is ridiculous! I will continue to argue against the decision of Essex County Council to switch off most of the street lights in Essex from midnight.
Mr Russell, do you have the figures / stats that irrefutably prove the accident rate has increased since the lights have been switched off at midnight
Oz – simple logic says that poorer visibility ( ie: dark ) certainly does’nt enhance the odds in any way – safety wise , and let’s not forget crime – dark is the friend of covert
activities , and no I don’t have stat’s but it is obvious is’nt it?.
Jim, no it is not obvious, where are the facts to back up the scaremongering….before the switch off people were predicting wholesale mayhem. Has this actually happened ?. Remember the old adage, Facts NOT opinions….
Oz – if you cannot see the better visibility logic then maybe you should eat more carrots then mate……..??????
Jim, that is a good point, I have never seen a rabbit wearing sunglasses….????
I think Bob is still amassing evidence . And a useful part of that is to ask the minister. It also gets the answer in the public domain.
In the same way that councillors can ask questions at Full Council..
Rest assured I will be pursuing the issue of road safety and street lighting – if there is no evidence, as intimated by the Road Safety Minister, then why do we bother to have street lights at any time?
The assertion is ludicrous.
Thanks for your responses Bob – I think it’s the first time we’ve had an MP on here….
At least someone is listening. Last week I had the misfortune to have to be called out in the early hours to an elderly relative on three occasions where paramedics were in attendance. They made it VERY clear the lack of street lights was a factor in delays attending emergencies at night. In roads where there are names rather than numbers the problem is even worse.
We have that problem in our road Linda. No numbers, just names. It was bad enough at night when we had just the couple of streetlights, but at least you could say to the ambulance control you were between the two streetlights, or opposite the last streetlight. Now if anyone has an emergency you really have to stand outside on the pavement ready to flag them down otherwise they have no chance of finding you.
The decisions are made but afterwards the unforeseen problems arise. We could say that these issues should have been thought about before hand but when they haven’t been then the policy needs to be altered rapidly. Cannot see this happening though.
So is it the responsibility of the Council to ensure emergency services (or anyone for that matter) can easily identify a property? Or is it the responsibility of the home owner or family members to ensure a property can be identified? If it is the responsibility of the council, please direct me to the relevant piece of legislation, otherwise I would suggest that we start taking responsibility ourselves, and stop passing the buck!
Good question, not sure of the answer. Though I vaguely recall that some years ago. – maybe 20- RDC were asked to assist by the emergency services with providing house numbers for Rawreth Lane, which up to that time only had house names. So there at least a tenuous link between councils and helping emergency services find properties.
We could probably arrange house numbers for your road Christine, if you thought it would help a little bit – even if that is not your preferred solution!
Admin, My recollection was that house numbers in Rawreth Lane coincided wuth the introduction of post codes to help the Royal Mail. Post codes and even house names are, as we all know, recognised by satnav devices which is why emergency services ask for an address before enquiring about the nature of the call. With an address they can mobilise help even if the caller is unable to continue giving details due to such circumstances as becoming uncontious or fleeing from a fire.
Admin, thanks but I don’t think it would necessarily help. During the day satnav seems to enable virtually everyone to find us, in the dark the satnav gets them to the immediate vicinity but then identifying an individual property in the dark with the street lights out becomes the problem. As most of the houses here don’t have gates at all numbers, like most house names, would be on the property and still wouldn’t be that visible from the road.
I do recall when we moved into our property I had a telephone conversation with a Planning Officer at RDC as the house next door but one to us has the same house number as us albeit they are in a different road. In an attempt to avoid confusion we put up a house sign with our house number and name of road right by the front door (it remains there to this day). Following numerous late hour pizza deliveries (not for us), visits by the police (not for us) and mis-directed post all wanting next door but one I phoned planning to see if something could be done about the street numbering (this problem actually occurs twice in Temple Way/Priory Chase), I explained what we had done to help prevent the problem and was simply told to buy a sign for our neighbour, and to sort the problem ourselves. I would not hold your breath in RDC solving a house numbering problem! And yes, 9 years later I still get people knocking on the door having gone to the wrong house!