Kent's "Safe and sensible street lighting" plan. Cough.

If you have a difficult policy, give it a name you can't disagree with. That seems to be the Kent County Council approach to streetlighting. Faced by trying to make savings (and reduce the number of lights they have to maintain) they have come up with a two stage policy of first turning off a lot of streetlights, and then secondly switching many more to part-time working so they would be turned off at midnight (or thereabouts) until pretty much dawn.

Now if you were going to consult on the above plan called "Our turn-off and part-time lighting" plan, residents may disagree. However, by calling it a "Safe and sensible street lighting" plan, they hope to make it harder to disagree with. Who could possibly be against safe and sensible streetlighting? Anyone caught questioning whether a streetlight that is off is either safe or sensible will be marked down as a troublemaker...

On that note, please do have a look at Kent County Council's current consultation on their "Safe and sensible street lighting" plan and have your say. And remember, all the way through, they are talking about turning lights off for at least part of the night. That will actually be a good thing in many places, and welcomed by many residents, and save some money. But don't be suckered by the name - YOU decide if it is safe and sensible.

In Folkestone West, after much negotiation and lobbying, many of the craziest schemes have been removed. The first street-light full turn-off proposals included a plan to turn off lights on the A259 Sandgate Hill and Sandgate Esplanade.

I argued against both, and got Sandgate Hill removed by the time they came back with modified proposals, and then got Sandgate Esplanade removed from the final proposals. I also asked for, and have won, a modification of plans to remove some lights in Royal Military Avenue to retain the lights from the "barracks" bus-stop to the junction with Naseby Avenue. In that case, keeping just a couple more lights means residents don't have to get off the bus in the dark and walk around 100m in the dark. Simple change, worth getting.

But the plans still include proposals to turn-off lights on the A20 by the staff entrance to Eurotunnel. At the Marsh Shepway Joint Transportation Board (JTB) meeting, I argued that as this is both the staff entrance for a 24 hour operation with many shift workers going into and out of the site late at night, but its also the main service and emergency entrance to the site. An area best lit at night? I'd say so. At that meeting, Kent Highways agreed to go back to look at that scheme, and bring back a report on that section of tuen-off, and only proceed after a further discussion.

There has been no JTB meeting since March, so why is that section of lights still marked for turn-off? I have no idea - and have emailed John Burr at Kent Highways to ask him. This turn-off is a cost saving too far: and if you happen to be responding to Kent's Consultation, I hope you tell them that too.