The article about the anger at switching off street lights (Nov 16) is a little late in the day.

With an estimated population of 1.6 million people living in 529,000 homes in Essex, the maximum saving that can be achieved by turning off the lights, after the controls are installed and their costing amortised, is £3.02p per annum per household, or less than 2p per person per week.

An amount easily covered by a tiny rise in council tax of 25p per month per household.

Rather than that, County Hall wants to expose people to the dangers of road accidents, assault and rape, burglary, criminal damage and car theft. But no! The county council knows better than several professors who have conducted scientific investigations, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, the AA and dozens of other studies all saying street lighting decreases the incidence of these accidents and crimes.

Councillor Norman Hume insults the democratic process as he takes no notice of objections by people who have suffered an exponential rise in crime in the trial areas.

He uses skewed crime figures to “prove” there are no problems by taking the police statistics for the whole of Essex rather than focusing specifically on the darkened trial areas.

Norman Hume and his colleagues must be stopped!

Charles March
High Barrets
Pitsea