COUNCILS in Harlow and Tendring are prepared to foot the bill to switch the street lights back on at night, but authorities in mid Essex are unlikely to follow suit.
Chelmsford, Maldon, and Braintree councils are not planning to pay towards street lighting, despite Essex County Council's part-night lighting task force admitting the lights could go back on if there were "third-party contributions".
"We have nothing in our budget about funding the street lights," said Chelmsford City Council leader, Cllr Roy Whitehead.
In Harlow, the council recently agreed a council tax rise of 1.5 per cent, to turn its street lights back on, while a proposal put to Tendring Council suggested setting aside £160,000 for lamps.
"We are speaking to Rodney Bass, the cabinet member at Essex County Council, to see if he is responsive to that idea," added Cllr Whitehead, who last year admitted the authority would consider funding the lights from its reserves.
"We are aware of other councils doing that, so we will be asking Councillor Bass to review the situation.
"If it is something we decided to do, we could make a supplementary estimate to our budget, but we won't be putting anything in as yet.
"But last week, I did a little survey at a meeting in one of the villages, and it seems that they are happy with the lights the way things are.
"It seems the biggest need for lights is in urban areas, of which Harlow is one. So the most sensible thing for us to do is see Cllr Bass' reaction and how receptive he is to the idea before we make a decision."
In Essex there are 105,000 lights off between midnight and 5am.
Trialled in the Maldon and Uttlesford districts since 2007, the multi-million pound project – the biggest of its kind in the country – is designed to shave about 20 per cent off the council's £4.5 million annual energy bill.
By turning off street lights between midnight and 5am using a central management system at County Hall, at a cost of £6.6 million, the scheme will save an estimated £1 million a year.
Despite previously dismissing LED lighting as a more eco-friendly alternative, as it was too expensive, Cllr Bass announced in December last year that 1,700 streetlights in six towns, including Maldon and Burnham, will be trialled with LEDs.
The six-month pilot scheme, potentially starting in March, also to be trialled in Great Dunmow, Saffron Walden and Colchester, would replace a selection of lamps which stay on at night for safety reasons.
Reacting to the plans in Harlow and Tendring, Cllr Bass said he did not think there was a need for the lights to be switched on, although he added that he would listen to councils' concerns.
"The only district that has asked to see me, and I believe wants to request for their lighting to be left on, is Harlow and I have agreed to meet with them – but it is a bit more complicated than just yes or no," he explained.
"I don't really think there is a case to do it, but if Harlow wants to make a case to me, I will listen, but I don't think there is a major appetite from most districts.
"We believe the part-night lighting scheme is good for Essex, and we introduced it only after full and careful evaluation. We think we got it right, but we acknowledge we might not have got it exactly right in every location, so what is reasonable is to respond to specific fine-tuning requests.
"There is some fine-tuning we want to do, and we want to do some experimenting with LED lighting, which we are implementing shortly, and we have responded to specific police requests on occasions where they have asked for certain lights to be left on."
