A20 Eurotunnel Service Entrance Streetlight Victory

Having attended a meeting today with KCC Highways engineers, Sandgate Parish Councillor Tim Prater has been promised that streetlights at the A20 Eurotunnel Service Entrance near J12 of the M20 will be removed from light turn-off plans.

Tim Prater has been campaigning to keep the lights on by the Eurotunnel entrance for many months, and the pledge today at the meeting at KCC Highways Ashford HQ with Behdad Haratbar (Head of Transport and Planning at Kent County Council) and other Highway Officers is in addition to Cllr Prater's successful earlier work to have lights on Sandgate Hill and sandgate Esplanade removed from streetlight tun off proposals.

Lib Dem Campaigner Tim said:

"I'm delighted that after months of lobbying Kent County Council on this they have relented and agreed to keep the lights nearest this junction on. The Eurotunnel service entrance is used by emergency vehicles, often travelling at speed, staff and deliveries 24 hours a day - to leave it unlit at night has always seemed to me and other local people to be dangerous.

"Although other lights on that stretch of the A20 will still be turned off, the street lights nearest the service entrance junction will now stay on, and if there is an increase in the number of accidents on either that stretch of the A20 or others where lights are to be turned off, there is the ability to simply turn them back on again.

"It's taken a lot of lobbying and research to get this agreement to keep these lights on, and I hope it keeps that section of road safe. I am suprised that on this issue the new UKIP Folkestone West County Councillor Hod Birkby had not taken up the fight. Whatever his priorities, it seems that fighting to ensure that major junctions in Folkestone West are properly lit aren't that high amongst them."

Kent County Council will be "turning off" lights where agreed in around 2 months time, but columns will remain in place for at least one year so that the safety of those turn-offs can be assessed and lighting reinstated if required. Kent County Council will soon also start consultation on streetlights to go to "part-night" lighting (ie turned off for some hours at night) which will effect some 70,000 lights across Kent.