STREET lights will be switched off in residential areas of Caldicot and the village of Grosmont from April as part of the council’s budget saving exercise.

Street lights will be turned off between midnight and 6am from Thursday, April 7 as This is part of a Monmouthshire council pushinitiative to save £180,000 expenditure on street lighting, contributing to a budget saving of £180,000.

The policy to switch off street lights in residential areas during the early hours of the morning was approved by the council in February 2014. It was agreed that no lights would be turned off in areas of traffic calming, pedestrian crossings or other high risk pedestrian areas.

Council street lighting officers have consulted with county councillors as well as town and community councils to determine areas where they thinkconsider street lights cannot be switched off. Lights have already been turned off in residential areas of Abergavenny, Chepstow, Monmouth and Usk and other locations.

Lights were due to be turned off in Caldicot last in September but this was delayed. The council said the fitting of the monitoring system in Caldicot was completed during the autumn but a decision was made to change the lanterns before the actual switch-off.

A council spokesman said the delay was while they searched for lanterns at a competitive price.

Monmouthshire’s cabinet member responsible for the county’s street lighting, Cllr Bryan Jones, the cabinet member responsible for street lighting, said: “In previous years, we have been able to make significant savings through working more efficiently. However, the scale of cuts in recent years means that we can’t avoid making savings that could impact on the communities we serve. I understand entirely that many people won’t like the idea of streetlights being turned off but we have limited the hours when this will happen and I’m confident that we have done what we can to minimise the impact”.”