A THREE-year trial to switch off 1,600 street lights across 46 areas in Bucks has ended.

A potential £100,000-a-year energy saving plan that involved switching off 1,600 streetlights completed its three-year trial on 10 September and will now undergo a period of consultation from 17 October – 11 December.

The Buckinghamshire County Council decided to switch off lights “no longer considered necessary for road safety reasons” in a bid to cut light pollution and save money. It has announced the trial has saved £250,000 in energy bills.

Proposals for the street light scheme – deciding which lights will remain switched off and which turned back on - will be based on collision data and feedback from the emergency services, as well as from residents, district councils and interest groups.

However there has been controversy surrounding the energy-saving scheme. A Buckinghamshire coroner urged the council in 2009 to review its switch-off plans after a 76-year-old woman was killed in a collision in January of that year in an area of Gerrards Cross where street lights had been turned off as part of the trial.

Coroner Richard Hulett said he felt Margaret Beeson’s death may have been avoidable had the street lights been on. He said: “The driver had no chance at all. Had there been more lighting, it would be very likely he would have seen Mrs Beeson.”

A further fatality occurred in January this year when an inquest heard Dr John Bendor-Samuel, an 81-year-old man who died from multiple injuries after being hit by a car on an unlit road near Studley Green, would not have been clearly visible to the driver.