When the dominant Conservative group on the county council forced through proposals to dim street lighting by 40% and to switch street lights in Cambridge lights off between midnight and 6am, Labour campaigned hard against this plan and Labour councillors voted against it. The Labour city council, which is not responsible for street lighting, agreed to temporarily meet part of the cost of keeping the lights on all night and eventually the Tory-dominated county council  gave way to this pressure and reversed its decision to switch off and dim the lights, at least for the next few months.

Labour will continue to campaign hard for adequate street lighting. Joe Dale, Labour’s candidate for Newnham in May’s county council elections, said, “It is a basic right that, as residents, we should be able to walk around our city and feel safe. Turning off street lights between 12am and 6am might work in the quiet villages of rural Cambridgeshire but it was entirely inappropriate to suggest this for the streets of Cambridge, where people are often out late at night or in the early morning.”