Concerns have been raised over the lack of street lighting in Skegness, with lights not staying on throughout the night. Councillors have raised the issue of the lack of street lighting and how it could worry holidaymakers and cause them to feel unsafe.
The issue of street lighting was raised by Councillor Danny Brookes, who raised the issue at a full council meeting, where he stated that he was "astounded" by a lack of attention on the matter in South East Lincolnshire Councils Partnership's new community safety plan.
Coun Brookes, who represents Skegness Winthorpe for Skegness Urban District Society, said that the lights not staying on throughout the night would not help the existing fear of crime. The community safety strategy is part of work that covers anti-social behaviour, hate crime, safer streets, the night-time economy and the safety of women and girls reports Leicestershire Live.
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However, the councillor felt that this was "failing." He said: "It mentions feeling safe and it mentions a night-time economy, but when people are leaving the Embassy shows at quarter to 12 and then they’ve got to walk home in total darkness because the street lights have been switched off.
"I believe that nobody’s going to be feeling safe in that area. You feel safe until you get to half past 11 when you’ve got to start running to make sure you’re home before the lights go out.
"The fear of crime is quite bad and if someone’s scared to walk out in the dark, then I think this is failing because people won’t feel safe after midnight."
Lincolnshire County Council introduced part-night street lighting in 2016 as a way to save money, but this change has been heavily criticised. Mablethorpe councillor Tony Howard expressed disappointment that there was not a commitment to lobby the central Government for more money.
He said: "For years now we’ve seen money draining away from the police, from the local authorities, from everywhere that could be contributing and making our streets safer — and a case in point is that the money is gone from the county council and they felt that they had to switch off the lights for certain periods of time."
During the full council meeting, calls for more action to highlight speeding offences, safeguarding of children and the safety of the LGBT+ communities were also raised. Council leaders said they had been lobbying for more money and help tackling issues, but that the document was not the place for such policy.
Deputy leader of the council, Graham Marsh of Alford, said: "The county [council] have a countywide partnership, and they do the lobbying. So I don’t think that it’s down to us to lobby Government.
"We put the pressure as much as we can on them on the county council and we have regular meetings with them." He added that some concerns were not "worth responding to quite honestly."
He said: "It’s not making a positive contribution to this debate. It’s… well… I think my mum used to call it ‘stop whinging and get off to bed’." Coun Marsh and other executive members also pointed to improvements in CCTV cameras with £400,000 of safer streets funding going towards coverage of some of the main routes in and out of town centres.
He also noted that all streetlights were also fitted with infrared lighting, meaning CCTV operators could see "just as well at night with the lights off". Sibsey and Stickney councillor Tom Ashton noted that the county council had a policy whereby town or parish councils could pay to have streetlights on - something Coun Brookes said had proven too expressive for the town council.
It would cost the town council £350,000 for 20 years with no guarantees lights would remain on. Leader of East Lindsey District Council Councillor Craig Leyland said he was happy to take up any actions and write to Lincolnshire County Council about concerns.
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