A call has been made for the street lights to be switched on before contractors fit energy saving LED strips in residential areas.

Cllr Gordon Cowan, who represents St Radigund’s, and Cllr Pam Brivio, who looks after Tower Hamlets, are appealing for Kent County Council (KCC) to put some of the lights in Dover back on.

It comes after the authority switched off street lamps throughout Kent during the night in a bid to save £1 million.

The move was met with widespread criticism from residents and police, who last year said it “could not support” the concept.

However, last week KCC announced its pledge to invest £40m to convert its 120,000
street lights to a centrally controlled LED lighting system, the largest conversion in the country.

It could take up to three years before all the lights are back on, however, according to Cllr Cowan who fears that the crime levels in St Radigund’s are high because of the darkness.

Two weeks ago the Mercury exclusively revealed that St Radigund’s and Tower Hamlets had the highest level of crime in November 2014.

St Radigund’s recorded 100 and Tower Hamlets had 91.

The figures came from crime statistics on the Kent Police website, which allows people to pinpoint problem areas in their neighbourhood.

Cllr Cowan said: “A call has been made for the street lights to be switched on before contractors fit energy saving LED strips in residential areas.

'I have been onto this from day one, street lights are vitally important to our community.' - Cllr Cowan

“I can sit down and show you the emails from all over the county where people are saying that burglaries and anti-social behaviour has gone up.

“It would make a massive different in areas like St Radigund’s and Tower Hamlets. It makes people vulnerable when they are switched off at night.

“The LED lights will be installed over a three-year programme so it could be 2019, but we want them on now.

“The safety of all our people is at risk.”

Cllr Brivio added: “We are still campaigning for them to be put on sooner but I still have not got the full evidence as to whether the crime in Tower Hamlets is from the street lights.

“I just think people will feel safer with the lights back on,” he said.

“I live near a main road and a railway station but in other parts of Tower Hamlets it is very dark so shift workers are very concerned and the elderly people feel vulnerable.”