Surrey’s streetlights could soon be turned back on between midnight and 5am, but district and borough councils would have to specifically request this and then pay the county council to do so.

The county council controversially turned off 44,000 street lights across Surrey between midnight and 5am to save an estimated £210,000 per year.

But Surrey County Council’s cabinet will meet on Tuesday (May 30) to discuss allowing borough and district councils the option of requesting lights in their area to be excluded from the part-night lighting scheme.

Council officers have recommended that cabinet members approve the decision, and force the county’s 11 councils to pay to keep their lights on for five years.

From December: Surrey County Council announces streetlights to be turned off in Epsom and Ewell

A council officer wrote: “District and borough councils have their own budgets and across the county will have differing local priorities.

“Enabling them to request lights be excluded from part-night lighting allows them to respond to those differing priorities by enhancing the level of service provided over and above that delivered by the county council.”

Ahead of the lights going out in Epsom and Ewell, Joe Bates, 52, a retailer who lives in College ward in Epsom, told the Epsom Guardian: “It will cause crime to go up like nothing. It’s ridiculous.”

From April: Disabled man calls for Surrey street lights to be turned back on after thugs target car in Epsom under cover of darkness

And in March, retired courier, Alan Pearch, 60, called for the lights to be turned back on after his white Hyundai was vandalised in the early hours of the morning in Tonstall Road, Epsom.

Explaining the initial decision to turn the lights off, a county council spokesman said in December: “Due to the ever-increasing demand for our services coupled with a reduction in government funding, we will be switching off streetlights in quiet areas with low amounts of traffic in the early hours of the morning.”

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