Eight new street lighting schemes are being installed across Bath and North East Somerset following requests from community groups, members of the public and the police.
Working with the Community Safety and Drugs Partnership, Bath and North East Somerset Council’s Community Safety and Street Lighting Teams assessed and prioritised lighting from a list of 70 street lighting requests. Eight schemes were chosen for funding. All schemes were assessed against specific community safety criteria addressing factors such as anti-social behaviour, nuisance and disorder.
Sir Elgar Jenkins, Executive Member for Transport and Highways said, “This partnership approach to help improve the environment is an excellent example of Bath & North East Somerset Council providing communities with projects that really make a difference to people’s lives. We propose to continue to work together to increase street lighting provision where it is most needed to help community safety”.
Improvements to the physical environment have a real impact on reducing crime and disorder, according to the council. Street lighting in particular is a useful crime prevention tool helping to create safer and more secure environments for communities.
Vic Pritchard, Executive Member for Community Safety said “Street lighting has been proven to help address people’s perception to crime and disorder. Therefore, we want to ensure that vulnerable communities can benefit from a simple yet effective crime prevention initiative.”
This is the first year of a three year programme of street lighting supporting Community Safety and there will be two further allocations of funding. The Community Safety and Drugs Partnership have recently produced their three year strategy. There are eight strategic priorities; Community Confidence is one.
