Streatham’s Labour party appears to be claiming credit for scrapping its own streetlight-dimming policy – while also pretending it wasn’t a Labour idea in the first place – while also refusing to say that it was a bad idea. It’s a confusing and innovative strategy, and U-turn specialists in Downing Street will no doubt be watching with interest.

The latest Labour publication stuffed through local letterboxes attacks the LibDems for saying the (Labour-run) Lambeth Council planned to turn down streetlights. “Despite what you may have read in LibDem leaflets, Lambeth’s street lights are – and will remain – fully switched on,” it declares.

Lambeth deputy leader (and Streatham Hill East councillor) Rezina Chowdhury has already been trying hard, over the last few weeks, to persuade voters ahead of local elections in May – though without ever quite making any promises – that the lights wouldn’t be turned down.

That was after the issue became something of a political hot lightbulb, following a Streatham public meeting where residents and neighbourhood police spoke out against the plans.

But Labour’s latest newsletter seems to go further than Cllr Chowdhury has previously – and raises question marks over just how far the party is now stretching the truth, in its effort to back away from the policy.

“Labour councillors took one look at the idea to dim street lights and vetoed it last year,” the full-page ad in Labour’s “Streatham Common and Vale News” says.

But StreathamStuff has been following this story keenly – and has seen no evidence that Labour councillors “vetoed” the idea; or that the plans were scrapped, last year; or that councillors can be said to have taken only one look at it.

This “adaptive streetlighting”, as the £4m scheme is formally known, was in fact presented in the council’s “Forward Plan” of future schemes every week for a year. It went through early stages of an external tendering process, to find a company to implement it. It was reported in The Times last summer. It still features in the council’s medium-term financial strategy documents. Labour councillors – if they’re paying any attention at all – can hardly have failed to notice.

And the last mention of it in a council meeting appears to be when Cllr Chowdhury updates Cabinet on the plans, in late November, and very clearly doesn’t say that they’re cancelled – only that Lambeth can’t yet afford to do it.

Cllr Chowdhury’s problem with the LibDems, at this point, is not that they are accusing Labour of planning to dim the lights – that is not disputed – it’s their accusation of “mis-spending” money on the scheme that is her target.

— It’s not something we’re going to be doing just yet

“I wanted to mention adaptive street lighting, and that's also been paused pending financial review. And I wanted to raise that because there's been some misinformation recently on certain leaflets that have been coming through the doors across the borough accusing the Council of mis-spending I call that misinformation, because it's not something that we're going to be doing, because we are taking the very sensible decision of not spending that money just yet. So I just wanted to put that on record so that everyone knows that adaptive street lighting is not going ahead because that is subject to financial pause.”

Still, opponents of the scheme will be pleased to see the firmest indications yet that Labour no longer intends to pursue adaptive lighting. Previous denials – again, mainly by Cllr Chowdhury – have been couched in some evasive political language. There’s evidence of a gradual abandonment of the policy, over the last few weeks.

“There is no agreed plan or programme to dim street lights in Lambeth,” she wrote in late January – appearing to concede that there was a plan, but it didn’t yet have the go-ahead.

“Lambeth Council has no plans to dim street lights,” she then said later, in a 31 January post on the NextDoor platform. “We have explored options such as adaptive lighting in the past… But Cabinet decided not to pursue this.”

At this point the emphasis has shifted to accusing the opposition LibDems – who are targeting several Streatham seats in the local elections, including Cllr Chowdhury’s own – of “misinformation” about the scheme itself, rather than the spending on it.

“Think you will find it’s not going ahead despite your protestations,” she writes in the replies below her NextDoor post. “LibDems spreading misinformation yet again.”

In fact, as the Cabinet Member responsible for environmental and sustainability issues, it is Cllr Chowdhury herself who is the decision-maker on this policy, as she confirms in another reply. She would be the one to instruct council officers to pursue the policy, and give or refuse that go-ahead, or not. If the Cabinet as a whole were involved at all, it would be only to rubber-stamp Cllr Chowdhury’s decision.

But in another reply, Cllr Chowdhury also distances herself from the policy altogether, with liberal use of the passive voice and an unlikely-sounding suggestion that council officers were acting without her instruction or approval, when they drew up a £4m scheme and put it out to tender.

“There was a proposal put forward by officers but this was not accepted by cabinet and therefore was never approved for implementation.”

That statement contained no detail on whether it was rejected by cabinet – or whether cabinet considered it at all. But the adaptive streetlighting scheme was still in the council’s Forward Plan on 2nd February – before finally being removed in time for the next week’s publication, on the 9th.

And it still features again at a cabinet meeting on Monday 23rd February, in the latest “Financial Planning and Medium Term Strategy Report 2025-2030”. The scheme – listed as “adaptive street lighting with LED enabled motion sensors, centralised management systems and control” – is marked in red, since it is projected to return zero savings in 2025-26, against planned savings of £387,000. The reason given for the shortfall? “Due to the capital pause.”

Spotlight on the savings gap

LibDem campaigners have been raising (and opposing) these energy-saving plans for months, and followed up last week with a statement accusing Labour of “now trying to spin their way out of this terrible policy” – while also leaving the 2025-26 council budget in deficit, by not replacing that £387,000 in expected savings (£2m, over four years) with new ones.

“Labour’s budget requires the savings from streetlight dimming to add up. While Labour can change the budget, they have not chosen to do this yet. And until this happens, the official policy of Lambeth Labour is to turn down streetlighting,” Lambeth LibDems said.

But it was a question from a local resident, at a mid-January police meeting hosted by community forum Streatham Action, which really pushed them into the spotlight, prompting Labour’s back-tracking.

Dimming the lights was a “terrifying” prospect, the resident said – and a bad idea, in the view of a Streatham neighbourhood police sergeant.

“I've heard reports that Lambeth Council are looking to dim street lights at night, and – personally – I find that really terrifying,” the resident said. “So what is the police force locally doing to try and dissuade Lambeth Council from taking that action?”

“I was aware of the lights,” the sergeant leading the meeting said, “and apparently it's a cost-saving exercise, and I'm very much against it… Before I came here, I was a designing-out-crime officer, which is putting in more lights and more CCTV and that sort of thing, trying to make people safe.

“It's completely alien to me why anyone would come up with an idea of, ‘I know, let's reduce the lights and dim them’. I honestly don't know… I would support any action against it. I think it's a shocking idea, to be quite honest with you.”

Memo fails to reach Labour’s Streatham councillors

Three local Labour councillors attended the meeting – all of them “backbenchers” rather than Cabinet members. None of them seemed to be aware that they had already “vetoed” it last year, or that it was no longer a Labour policy.

Cllr Malcolm Clark (Streatham Wells) was quick to report back to the Lambeth mothership, saying he had immediately “emailed the cabinet member responsible for community safety [presumably Cllr Mahamed Hashi] around the lighting question, to ask them”.

Cllr Sarah Cole (Streatham Common and Vale) spoke apparently in support of the plans. “It's controllable centrally, and the police also have input into it,” Cllr Cole said. “It's an imperceptible difference in the amount of light, and the lights are quite directional, so they'll be in the right place and not into your house. If you go up to Crystal Palace and into the Croydon part, you might see it in operation.”

The third councillor present, Cllr Dominic Armstrong (also Streatham Common and Vale), was still unable to say, when asked on Saturday, what the “veto” on his own campaign literature referred to – and suggested that StreathamStuff should ask Cllr Chowdhury.

Matters arising - StreathamStuff to ask the following, and report back with any answers

Ask councillors - are they happy that the claim on their campaign literature is true? Which councillors took one look at the policy and vetoed it, and when?

Ask Labour councillors if there is still potentially a case to be made for the streetlight dimming policy – or whether they are now committed to not bringing the policy back in the next council term.

Freedom of Information request to the council, to find out who initiated and suspended the policy, and when. Also to ask what the response and follow-up was to its Preliminary Market Engagement Notice.