Council Will Improve Portswood Street Lights

The Soton Tab can reveal that some street lights in Portswood will be given an upgrade, but will face DIMMING by up to 50%. Southampton Council bosses have ordered for street […]


The Soton Tab can reveal that some street lights in Portswood will be given an upgrade, but will face DIMMING by up to 50%.

Southampton Council bosses have ordered for street lights to have new bulbs fitted, despite being replaced not even a year ago. After complaints from local residents and pressure from the Soton Tab, council chiefs inspected street lights in the poorly lit roads in Portswood and agreed they were not up to scratch.

Street lights being replaced in Tennyson Road

Gordon Avenue, Alma Road (part of) and Tennyson Road will see new lanterns replaced within the next few weeks.

However, in line with saving cash and complying with carbon emission quotas, street lights will be dimmed by up to 50% at certain times.

Between dusk and midnight, lighting will be reduced by 25% and between midnight and 5am street lamps will be dimmed by a whopping 50%. Between 5am and dawn, they will be brought back to 25% dimmed. Only residential streets will face dimming but shopping precincts, car parks, areas around the city’s universities, parks and the city centre will not be dimmed. Traffic routes will only be dimmed by 25% between midnight and 5am.

Under the Government’s Climate Change Bill, Southampton City Council’s carbon emissions must be reduced by 40% by 2020 which will save £284,000 a year and bring CO2 emissions down from 6000 tonnes to 4300 annually.

The new policy approved by the Council Cabinet in July and will be rolled out over the next few months. Southampton, like all councils across the country, must comply with the new measures of reducing carbon emissions.

Many Portswood residents will no doubt be concerned that dimming street lights could influence the already high crime rates. Third year student Jennifer Ingham told The Tab:

Students should feel safer at night in residential areas. I know people who have been attacked – dimming the lights in already poorly lit streets like Gordon Avenue is dangerous and I think people, myself included, will definitely feel less safe.

However, the council insists that the dimming scheme will be closely monitored and they plan to hold regular meetings with the Police and the City Safety Team to determine whether increases in road accidents or crime in certain areas occur and recommendations for revisions in illumination will be discussed.

A study by Southampton University scientists in the nineties found that neither dimming nor increasing street lighting had any impact on crime rates but better lighting gave residents, particularly women, a measure of reassurance. But is this really true for Portswood?

What do you think of the dimming regime? Will you feel safe at night out in Portswood?