From another newsgroup -
Maybe there is a silver lining to the high cost of electricity - reducing light pollution in the urban environment. Beginning in January 2007, an English council started turning off all but minimal essential service street lighting (out of a total of 120,000 street lamps) between midnight and 5am due to the high cost of electricity. Plug pulled on all-night lighting 7/14/2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/essex/5179610.stm The council was planning to pull the plug on about 25 linear miles of street lighting in the wee hours of the morning being in Jan. 2007. In 2006, a London newspaper opined based on the old scare tactic that there is an association between street lighting and crime, i.e. that there will be a crime wave: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23436692-details/New+crimewave+fe... A followup web search did not indicate any crime wave occured in Essex since last year. Essex County Council Website on street lighting http://www.essexcc.gov.uk/vip8/ecc/ECCWebsite/dis/gui.jsp?sectionOid=172&cha... The general scope of the pilot program actually implemented in January 2007 is unclear or its current status and outcome. - Kurt ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ