More than half of Kent's street lights are being switched off in an attempt to save money and the environment.

Around 70,000 lights will be switched off between midnight and 5.30am. Almost 3,000 other lights are being turned off completely on a trial basis.

Kent County Council roads bosses have already switched off what they describe as ''unnecessary'' lights in Dover and are widening the trial to include lights in the rest of the county.

The switch to 'part-night' lighting between midnight and 5:30am will begin in Tunbridge Wells and Sevenoaks in December before taking place across Kent.

Town centres, main routes, areas close to hospitals and areas with high crime levels will not be part of the switch-off. Pedestrian crossings, subways and footpaths as well as traffic safety measures including roundabouts will also remain lit.

Road users will be able to find how they will be affected by the switch-off using an interactive map on the county council website.

Councillors say the measures will save taxpayers around £1 million in energy costs and cut carbon emissions by around 5,000 tonnes a year.

John Burr, director of transportation and highways at KCC, said: "We have looked at the statistics of other counties that have done it.

"We've had very detailed discussions with the police, also with ROSPA the road safety specialists of the UK and we've been very careful in the sites that we've chosen not to select sites that have a high risk or accident problem.

"If we thought that there was any risk of increased road accidents we wouldn't be doing this policy at all.''

He said the authority was also looking at changing the remaining 50,000 columns to LED lanterns.

Mr Burr added: "That would reduce our bill by probably 60% to 79%, which is a massive saving.

"They're still quite expensive to do, but actually the pay back period is quite short and we're currently looking at ways of getting funding from a variety of government agencies to see if we can do that.

"Hopefully we'll get those done and then come back at some point and do the rest of them as well. It's exciting times we're just trying to protect people's pocket.''