Switching off the lights - to keep you safe (From Daily Echo)

Switching off the lights - to keep you safe

9:00am Wednesday 28th November 2007 in News By Echo Reporter

COUNCIL chiefs are to turn off the lights on a notorious footpath - in a bid to make it safer.

The decision to switch off street lamps in Lovers Walk in Highfield, Southampton, has been backed by police.

They hope people will no longer want to use the walkway, which is popular with students and dog walkers, because it will be completely dark.

It follows a similar trial across the road on a stretch of Southampton Common, which they say has been so successful in reducing crime that the lights are now being removed altogether.

The decision - doing the opposite of what people would expect to make a pathway safer - is to stop the spotlight being put on potential victims while would-be attackers are able to hide in the shadows, they claim.

It follows a similar trial across the road on a stretch of Southampton Common, which they say has been so successful in reducing crime that the lights are now being removed altogether.

But it comes less than two years after the city council spent thousands of pounds installing lights and re-routing pathways in the city centre parks to make them safer.

The switch-off will happen in less than two weeks time, as students prepare to go home for Christmas, and will be trialled until next spring.

To read more, see today's Daily Echo.