Leader acknowledges street lighting backlash
25/09/2025
The controversial plans were postponed pending a public consultation
by Esme Kenney, Local Democracy Reporter
The leader of Oxfordshire County Council acknowledged the authority had learned lessons after last year’s plans to turn off street lighting was delayed due to a backlash.
Plans to turn off streetlights across the county between 11.30pm and 6am were meant to go to the cabinet for decision last November.
The county council faced backlash from Labour city councillors and the Thames Valley police and crime commissioner Matthew Barber, who raised concerns for women’s safety and anti-social behaviour.
As a result, the decision was deferred and the county council decided to hold a public consultation on the scheme.
The updated version of the proposal was discussed by the council’s scrutiny committee at a meeting on Wednesday, September 24.
Under these plans, town and parish councils and the local county councillor would have to support turning off the streetlights before it can go ahead.
Oxford and other large urban areas, as well as major road junctions and remote alleyways, would not be included the scheme, and therefore would not be able to apply to switch off the lights.
Councillor Liz Leffman, leader of the county council, said at the meeting that “on reflection [the report] probably shouldn’t have been published the way that it was”.
She added: “It raised quite a lot of questions from members of the public, particularly around the safety of turning off the lights at night which was entirely understandable.
“For some of our communities there are genuine benefits associated with this.
“I know from places in my division that they really do want to see dark skies because there’s huge benefit to biodiversity [and] natural recovery.
“But there are other parts of the county where there is a real concern that turning the lights off at night does compromise safety.”
The outcome of the consultation showed that 50.4 per cent of respondents supported the proposal, compared to 43.9 per cent who opposed it and 5.7 per cent who are neutral.
Later in the meeting councillor Susanna Pressel asked what went wrong last year when the report on turning off street lighting was first published.
Ms Leffman responded: “The paper ended up being published before other members of the cabinet had seen it.
“That was the reason why we decided, having looked at it, that it shouldn’t go forward to the meeting.
“And when you read that paper it was pretty clear that it wasn’t really emphasizing the positives of this, and it didn’t explain how we would deal with some of the concerns that residents would have.”
The committee recommended that they should engage with parish and town councils to ensure they understand the proposal.
The cabinet will decide whether the policy will be approved at their meeting next month.
Published: by the Banbury FM News Team
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