A SURVEY carried out by a Ukip councillor has found a majority of residents in Clacton want streetlights switched back on.

Earlier this year Tendring Council set up a streetlights working party to decide where lights should be switched back on.

The move came after the council agreed to aside £160,000 to pay Essex County Council to switch streetlights back on across the district, where most lights are being switched off between 1am and 5am in a bid to save cash.

Tendring Council carried out its own survey last year, to which two thirds of the 300 respondents called for lights to go back on.

But Andrew Pemberton, who represents Clacton’s Peter Bruff ward, launched his own ‘text message’ survey after the creation of the council’s working party, which had been criticised as a “delaying tactic” to keep streetlights off this winter.

Mr Pemberton said 78 per cent of 66 people who replied to his survey had called for the lights to remain on.