Cambridge University Student Union’s decision-making Council voted on Monday to “actively campaign” to stop the Cambridgeshire Country Council switching off the streetlights on Garret Hostel Lane, Grange Road and Trinity Lane.

The Council decided to back an existing petition to stop the streetlights, located in an area densely populated with students, from being turned off – due to take place from 1st April next year. They also voted to create their own petition, which would cover a wider selection of roads.

The original Change.org petition, created by Trinity College’s Women’s Officer Beth Cloughton, has already attracted 2,168 supporters at the time of writing. The petition, which asks the County Council, City Council and Colleges to “work together to prevent lights from going off and outing citizens in danger”, emphasises the importance of a “perception of safety”.

The petition highlights a study by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, which revealed 83 per cent of women feel unsafe in unlit areas.

The motion to support the effort to stop the lights being switched off was proposed by Cornelius Roemer, President of the Trinity College Students’ Union. Speaking to Varsity, Roemer emphasised that it is “crucial to ensure that the lights remain on without gaps”.

Cloughton told Varsity that lighting is a town-wide concern, and not exclusively an issue for the student population.

The decision was taken to launch a second petition after Fitzwilliam College JCR’s Vice-President Damiano Sogaro pointed out that Cloughton’s original petition does not cover all those student-frequented areas which are currently set to lose their lights.

Roemer said the decision was taken to launch a petition independently, as CUSU is “slow on the move”.

The County Council spends £270,000 each year on lighting in Cambridge, from a total of £1.1 million towards street lighting across the county. It emphasised the savings that can be made from the plan, which involves turning off the lights from 12am–6am in many residential areas. Several councillors have raised concerns with the plan.

“This proposal to dim or switch off lights has already been implemented throughout our neighbouring authorities in Essex, Hertfordshire, Suffolk and Norfolk,” said a County Council spokesperson.

“There has been no evidence of any increases in either crime or traffic related accidents in these areas”.

Roemer criticised the “ludicrous” decision made by the County Council, saying that “street lights contribute strongly to a perception of safety”. He said that TCSU will continue to appeal to the County Council, but if that fails, they will go to the City Council, which is more “student friendly”.

He described the County Council as “constituted largely of old men”, and said that it “just doesn’t see students as a priority group”.

The CUSU Council also discussed the scrapping of student maintenance grants, and voted on three other ordinary motions.

They moved to support the National Demo for Free Education, after a few amendments which included removing “tax the rich” from the slogan. A vote to support the Cambridge University Calais Refugee Action Group failed by four votes to three, with the majority of participants abstaining, after questions were raised about the amount of funding required, and the precedent that would be set.

The Council also voted on a second motion proposed by Roemer, which criticised the current running of CUSU. The proposal stated that attendance at CUSU Council is “undesirably low”, and that the “reputation of CUSU is low, especially compared to other JCRs and University Student Unions”. The motion sought to force CUSU Officers to bring forward their policy ideas to the Council on a “continuous basis”.

The Council passed an altered version of the motion, maintaining only a set of resolutions that involved keeping the Council’s list of active resolutions up-to-date.

Under current rules, any motion passed by CUSU expires after three years, unless refreshed. It was suggested that the Council should discuss the questions raised by Roemer’s motion at a later date.