Concerns raised over nighttime safety in Bowes following installation of new LED street lamps, reports Simon Allin, Local Democracy Reporter

Street lights — credit Marvin Zettl via Unsplash

Street lamps have been brightened by 15% in Bowes ward following concerns raised by residents about nighttime safety, council officers have said.

Civic centre chiefs said there was no evidence of a link between crime and the brightness of street lamps but added that the levels had been boosted on residential roads, secondary roads and footpaths in the ward.

Councillors have previously raised concerns that people feel less safe in streets made quieter by the roll-out of low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTN). The Bowes Park LTN – officially known as the Bowes Area Quieter Neighbourhood – was introduced by Enfield Council in September 2020 in an effort to stop through-traffic from using residential streets.

Its introduction coincided with a programme to upgrade street lamps across the borough to LED lighting, which is more energy efficient. According to a report presented to a meeting of the council’s crime scrutiny panel on Wednesday, LED lamps can make roads appear darker because they “focus almost all the light downwards”.

The report states that in October 2021, in response to complaints from residents, the council increased the output of all street lights on residential roads, secondary roads and footpaths in Bowes and Upper Edmonton wards. Since then, it has received “less than one complaint regarding poor lighting each month”.

Andrea Clemons, the council’s head of community safety, told the meeting that Enfield crime statistics in the year to December 2022 did not prove a link or correlation between crime levels and the levels of lighting.

She added: “The figures would show that it is a very mixed picture, and hard, actually, to draw any link between reported crime and lighting levels, and impossible to draw a conclusion about fear of crime and lighting levels.”

Patricia Gregory, a Conservative councillor, said residents in the Bowes LTN had been saying the light levels were much lower than in neighbouring Haringey, and young women and girls did not feel safe because it was “a lot darker”.

John Grimes, the council’s head of highway operations, replied that some of the principal roads in the LTN such as Brownlow Road are lit to a “higher class” than the side roads. But he added that there was “no difference in the lighting standard applied to the Bowes LTN than there is to Enfield Town, Turkey Street or any other ward in the borough”.

Tim Fellows, chair of Enfield safer neighbourhood board, said the lack of passing traffic in the LTN combined with “lower lighting levels” was making people more unsafe. He suggested lighting the LTN areas better to “give people a feeling of safety”.

In response, John said the lighting levels in Bowes ward had been increased by “around 15%” but added that to the naked eye it is “probably not a huge increase in actual light output”. However, he said the volume of complaints had “almost diminished to zero” after the light level was increased.

Officers told councillors light levels were set in accordance with British standards. They explained that they also received complaints about light pollution and needed to strike a balance between “environmental needs, economic realities, and delivering lighting that conforms to the British standard of that time”.

Conservative panel member Adrian Grumi suggested residents in the Fox Lane LTN would also like a 15% uplift in street lighting levels. Officers said they would investigate whether it was possible to increase the brightness of street lamps in “areas of concern”.

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