By Paul Hemsley

Municipality of Burwood has upgraded its street lighting to increase community safety and crime prevention.

As part of a $40000 lighting project for the council’s ‘Watch Out’ campaign, additional street lighting has been installed between Burwood Road and Strathfield train station, and along Gladstone Road and part of Wentworth Road.

Ausgrid is managing the street light upgrade and installation, including 14 lights and upgrading 39 existing lights, with a total of 65 lights covering the Strathfield corridor.

The lights are brighter at 125 watts compared to the previous 80 watts, and are 150 watts along Wentworth Road.

Mayor John Faker said lighting is just one aspect of a "multifaceted project" incorporating community education, lighting and maintenance, and staff training.

According to Mr Faker, the NSW Department of Justice and Attorney General will fund the ‘Watch Out’ project through the Crime Prevention Planning Division.

“The ‘Watch Out’ campaign is based on crime prevention theory with particular attention to crime prevention through environmental design and situational crime prevention,” Mr Faker said.

Mr Faker said the lighting upgrade is based on statistics gained from Burwood Local Area Command and the Australian Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.

He said they identified “hot spot locations” combined with research completed as part of Council's crime prevention plan process.

'Watch Out' is a campaign targeting community safety with staff training in crime prevention through environmental design, delivery of community-based safety forums, educational resource distribution, lighting upgrades and tree trimming.

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