Residents and business owners in Warrington, Cheshire, are raising concerns about a new plan to turn off street lights and stop live camera monitoring across the town centre to save money. Details of the proposals by Warrington Borough Council were published in early February 2026.
The plan involves dimming or switching off street lights during the night to save approximately £120,000. The council also proposes closing the town-centre CCTV control room, ending live monitoring (currently recorded as about 110 hours per week) and leaving cameras in a passive mode so footage would only be reviewed retrospectively; the council says that change would save around £220,000.
These measures are being considered because the council faces a revised £130 million budget gap over the next four years (to 2029/30) and is dealing with substantial debt and reduced returns from its commercial investment portfolio, according to council papers and the government explanatory memorandum.
Local shop owners, the Warrington BID and Cheshire Constabulary have warned that these changes could make people feel less safe and harm the evening trade for pubs and restaurants. Council documents state that, during 2025, real-time intervention led to around 600 arrests and 3,500 police attendances without arrest; Cheshire Constabulary has warned those figures would fall substantially if the system were left in passive mode.
The council will consider the budget papers at Scrutiny Committee on 16 February and at Cabinet on 18 February, before the budget-setting Full Council meeting on 2 March 2026. If the budget is approved, the council says real-time CCTV monitoring could cease from September 2026 at the earliest.
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