Street lights are being switched off for part of the night across Leeds in a bid to save £1.3 million.

Otley and Yeadon will be among the first areas to experience the part-time switch off.

The project, which also aims to reduce carbon emissions, is being launched in Garforth and Swillington this week, followed by Adel and Wharfedale and Otley and Yeadon. It will then work inwards towards the city centre, which will not itself be affected.

Leeds City Council says the programme of works will be phased in over the next three years until it reaches the point where 8,000 of the city’s 92,000 street lights will be switched off between midnight and 5:30am.

The work will be carried out in two phases, with the first phase seeing approximately 3,250 lights on main roads being switched off.

The second phase will repeat the process, this time turning off a total of 4,750 lights on residential streets.

A partnership made up of Leeds City Council, emergency services, crime reduction, community safety and road safety representatives has carried out risk assessments to decide which lights should be switched off. A public consultation exercise was carried out earlier this year.

Leeds City Council executive member for the economy and development, Councillor Richard Lewis, said: “While the primary reason for doing this is to save money and help cut carbon emissions, we would like to stress that road safety and the impact on crime remains of the utmost importance.

“The assessments over which lights can be switched off and which can’t have been thorough and conducted by a team effort involving the judgements of all key stakeholders as well as the feedback received from the public.

“We hope people will not really notice much of a difference, but it is important to say we do have the flexibility to turn the lights back on again if major problems arise. We do hope though that will not be necessary.”

The council says strict criteria have been followed to determine which lights are switched off. Lights will not be turned off in areas which suffer from significant problems, such as crime and accidents, during the affected times.

They will also stay on around hospitals, sheltered housing, pedestrian crossings, subways and other areas where they are felt to be essential.