Liberal Democrat county councillors will vote against a Labour group motion on Street Lighting at tomorrow’s meeting of Warwickshire County Council. The Labour motion seeks to reverse the previous Council decision on part-night street lighting, “in the interests of the personal safety of all Warwickshire residents”.

Cllr John Whitehouse (Kenilworth Abbey), Communities lead scrutiny member for the Liberal Democrat group, said:

“We’ve been totally consistent on this policy of part-night street lighting right from the beginning – we support it in principle, as an important contribution to achieving financial savings, and to help reduce energy consumption. However, we’ve called for an early evidence-based review by the County Council of how it has worked out in practice, and what problems if any it has caused. The review should take evidence from the Police and other emergency services. If the personal safety of Warwickshire residents has been adversely affected, then clearly that would be an issue – but currently there is no evidence to confirm this.

“We wanted the review to start in May, but in a Council vote in February both Conservatives and Labour voted to oppose this. At tomorrow’s Council meeting we shall be pressing the Portfolio Holder to commit to carrying out the review, and bringing a report back to the Council at the earliest possible opportunity.

“Labour’s motion tomorrow is a purely political gesture. They have presented no evidence to support it, nor have they said what cuts they would make elsewhere in the Council’s budget to recoup the £500,000 annual savings that switching off the lights is giving.”