Almost three quarters of councils have already reduced street lighting in their area, or are considering doing so.

The blackouts are being rolled across thousands of streets in rural areas, suburbs and city centers in almost every county in the UK, despite concerns from residents and police that the moves will lead to an increase in traffic accidents and crime.

In total, 98 out of 133 local authorities who responded to a survey said were scaling back street lighting, or were looking into doing so.

Every county council which took part in the survey said they were reducing lighting or planning to do so, as did local authorities in several major cities, including Cardiff, Sheffield, Edinburgh and parts of London.

Conversely, those that said they had no plans to change were mostly small councils, many of which have responsibility only for lighting in off-road areas, such as parks, car parks and footpaths.

The schemes to reduce street lighting involve either switching some off altogether or installing new lamps are automatically dimmed or turned off during "quiet" periods, late at night. In some schemes, technology is being installed which will allow CCTV operators monitoring streets to dim or brighten lights according to the need.

Councils say the moves help cut energy bills and meet climate change targets. Britain's 7.5 million street lamps cost an estimated ￡500 million a year to run.

One of the biggest schemes under way is in Norfolk, where 3,300 streets in Norwich as well as rural parts of the county are being be converted to "part-night lighting", meaning their lights will go off from midnight until 5am.

In addition, more than 5,000 "dimmable" lights will be installed on main traffic routes, which will give off a third less light from 8pm until 5am.

The Tory-run council say it will save ￡167,000 a year, but Steven Altman, a Green Party councillor in Norwich, criticised the scheme.

He said: "The environmental and economic benefits have been overstated. There is a lot of opposition from residents who are concerned about the impact it will have on crime."

(Read by Emily Cheng. Emily Cheng is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

(telegraph.co.uk)