Letter of the day: 'Dimmed street lights in Portsmouth provide the perfect backdrop for crime'

Darkness provides the perfect cover for the shadowy figures moving from one offence to another.

Street lights in Portsmouth being removed or dimmed provides the perfect backdrop, whatever the reasoning might be, for further crime and crime that may well prove to be even more difficult to detect.

The first two paragraphs of the ‘In The Courts’ round-up in The News refers to offenders assaulting police officers and carrying a large kitchen knife respectively. That is the level of crime on our community streets.

Carbon emissions and cost-cutting are obviously vital targets for the world these days, let alone Portsmouth, but there has to be sensibility and sensitivity to cuts that will actually increase costs, in terms of emergency services, courts and prisons but, above all, will decline the feeling of safety on streets that will soon become no go areas after daylight.

Anybody with children will know that night-time, bad dreams or just a feeling of insecurity is often instantly reduced by the switching on of a light. So, while we keep hearing shallow promises from the authority and government about zero tolerance to crime and much needed increase in policing, we are prepared to make life even more difficult and dangerous with the darkening of our streets.

I have no faith in surveys or statistical figures, you can slant a report to read whichever way you wish, but what I do know is that the figures reported for crime and violence are sickeningly true.

Dean Kimber

North Shore

Hayling Island