New street lights planned for Surrey could reduce night crime by up to 10 per cent and cut down on accidents while helping to save the planet.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has backed Surrey County Council’s plans to replace 70,000 street lights, the vast majority more than 25 years old and which do not meet modern lighting or safety standards.

One of the key functions of the scheme is to improve lighting across the country to reduce nightglow caused by the present street lights.

Tim Harrold, vice-president of the CPRE in Surrey, said: "We are very much in favour.

"We appreciate the white light that will be used and that the new lights will reduce light pollution as they are downward directed."

Dr Andrew Povey, leader of Surrey County Council said: "There will be more lights in crime black spots which have been identified by the police."

New energy efficient bulbs will be used which provide a cleaner white light, which will help reduce crime.

Police prefer white light to be used in street lights rather than the existing yellow for that reason.

The council anticipates that upgrading the lighting to modern standards will reduce night time crime by 10 per cent.

Surrey County Council has named Skanska Laing as the preferred bidder for the project, a consortium made up of Skanska Infrastructure Development and John Laing.

The next stage is final negotiations and approval by senior councillors before the scheme to replace all lamp posts managed by the County Council begins.

Ian Lake, executive member for transport, said: "This will be an opportunity to make the streets of the county safer thanks to new sharper energy efficient lighting."

The scheme to replace street lighting will take five years and it will be financed under a private finance initiative, which provides a way of funding major public projects.

Under the private finance initiative scheme, central government will pay the £74 million towards streetlight replacements. The county council will continue to fund the maintenance costs of the scheme for the next 25 years.