Street lighting to be paid for by residents

RESIDENTS in parts of Sevenoaks will be asked to pay for their own street lighting as the town council reviews its budget.

The measure comes as Sevenoaks town councillors look to save the £6,000 annual cost of the street lighting in privately-maintained roads.

Some of the roads in Sevenoaks, notably Wildernesse Avenue, Kippington, Woodside and Oakhill Roads, are maintained by groups of residents, instead of being the responsibility of Kent County Council.

Chairman of the finance and general purposes committee Robert Piper explained the council had agreed in principle to pass over the maintenance of street lights in unadopted roads to these groups of residents.

He said: "We have already passed street-lighting to Oak Hill Road and Kippington Road residents. We want to talk to other residents' associations to see if they would be interested in taking the responsibility.

"It gives them more choice and it will give them the opportunity of upgrading them to heritage lights. With us they only get bog standard ones."

See this week's Chronicle for the full story