Motorway lights have been switched off permanently along the two motorways serving Hyndburn - to cut energy bills.

With effect from Tuesday, March 29 the lighting was permanently turned off between the Clayton-Le-Moor junction of the M65 and junction 10, and along the seven-mile long M66.

The same is being done between junctions 4 and 6 of the M58, at a combined saving of £207,000 a year.

Lights have been manually switched off at 13 sites across the country over recent years between midnight and 5am, but with the capacity to be switched on in poor weather.

The latest switch-offs will be total blackouts, except for motorway junctions and their approaches.

Highways Agency bosses claim the sites have good safety records and if the motorways were built today they would not be lighted, due to changes in standards.

There were 22 accidents on the 5.5-mile section of M65 during ‘dark hours’ in the five years to 2006, and a 'pia' rate of 0.44 - representing 11 personal injuries every 25 years in these hours.

By comparison there were 18 accidents on the M66 in the same time frame, and pia rate of just 0.36, described as ‘low’.

Divisional director David Grunwell said: "Road lighting on our network accounts for about a fifth of our carbon footprint and efforts to reduce energy consumption are an important contribution we can make towards reducing the impact on the environment. A rigorous safety case has been developed for this project, and there will be close monitoring of the safety performance of those sections of motorway where the change is being introduced."

But Hyndburn MP Graham Jones has criticised the move. He said: "If they were serious about carbon reduction they would have installed low energy light bulbs, not turned the lights off. We can only hope that the safety record on that stretch remains as good with the lights off as it was with the lights on. There's no growth in the economy, the cuts are unfair and the Government is turning off the lights on the roads."

Andrew Howard, AA’s head of road safety, said: It's been done with a fair bit of science, but we have asked that it’s kept monitored."