Tories Forced to u-Turn on Street Lighting

After staunchly opposing Lib Dem proposals to invest reserves in green LED lights rather than switch lights out, the Tories made a surprise u-turn as they gave Council officers the go ahead to start building a business plan to do it. By investing £24m in LED lights and a Central Management System, the Council now hopes to make over £2 million in energy and efficient savings per year.

This is a new direction for the Tories. In July they even voted down an amendment that asked the Council to just look into the possibility of using reserves to invest in green technology as an alternative to turning the lights out and instead spoke about how it would be nice to be able to see stars in the dark night sky, and that residents would get used to carrying torches.

Perhaps someone let on to them that over a thousand residents had already signed our petition to save Leicestershire's street lights and leaving residents to come home from work without street lights on a dark winter evening was not acceptable!

Councillor Simon Galton said: "After rubbishing our proposals for a sensible approach, the Tories have finally had to admit that our approach was the right one.

This happened last year with the Solar Panels - fierce and angry opposition in the Council chamber, only to later realise we were right all along.

We're glad that in end they finally came to the right decision but would it really have hurt them to have worked constructively with us from the beginning?

Thanks to everyone who signed the petition. Your voice really made a difference this time!"