A COUNTY councillor calling for Farnham’s streetlights to be turned back on at night has backed a petition calling on Surrey County Council to reverse the blackout.

The county council turned off some of the streetlights in the between 1am and 5am in March last year in a bid to save the council £210,000 per year, and since then residents have been campaigning for them to be switched back on.

Warlingham man John Lazenby started a petition last year and says statistics show crime has risen “dramatically” by 35-and-a-half per cent overnight as a “direct result” of the blackout.

His petition, with 645 signatures, was handed over to Surrey County Council’s cabinet member for places, Colin Kemp, on June 5, while an online petition started after the switch-off has also mustered 7,514 backers.

Yet Mr Kemp has disputed the campaigner’s claims, adding there had been an “overall decrease in crime” and pointing to “a number of inconsistencies” in the police data.

Responding, Mr Lazenby is now threatening to “pay for a good lawyer to raise the matter legally”.

Stephen Spence, county councillor for Farnham North, holds similar concerns in regards to the Sandy Hill estate, where he claims several people have fallen down steps as a result of the blackout.

Endorsing Mr Lazenby’s petition, he told the Herald: “I think the switch-off is a false economy which a lot of residents resent. Cabinet has revised the switch-off hours to 1am from midnight and in Sandy Hill some of the lights on steps were switched back on, although residents tell me still not all.

“They say crime has not increased as a result of the switch-off but many residents believe that it has. Certainly many feel less safe at night, which is why, as an opposition councillor, I have been trying to persuade the cabinet that keeping council tax payers in the dark is not a smart move.”