7.2. Choosing from a List

Between 2019 and 2021, Fenmarsh District Council dimmed 3,200 street lamps on minor roads to half brightness between midnight and 05.00. The aim was to cut the electricity bill. The bill fell by about 18 per cent in the first year, and the figure held in the second. Officers had expected a larger saving. Their report gives two reasons for the gap. The older lamps cannot be dimmed below half brightness without flickering, so the cheapest setting was never available. And about 400 lamps on roads with a bus stop were returned to full brightness within six months, after residents complained. Other complaints were fewer than the council had feared. Of 140 letters received in the first year, about a third asked for the dimming to be extended to the writer's own street. Police recorded no rise in night-time burglary on the dimmed roads, though they warn that two years is too short to prove anything. The council has decided to keep the scheme. It has rejected a proposal to switch the lamps off entirely, which a neighbouring district tried and then reversed after eighteen months. It has also rejected a request to begin the dimming at 22.00, because that is when the last buses run. What the trial did not measure was road accidents. Minor roads in the district carry so little traffic after midnight that any change would not show in two years of data. The report says so plainly, and asks that no accident figure be quoted as evidence either way.

Questions 27 and 28 Choose TWO letters, A-E, for questions 27 and 28. Which TWO reasons does the writer give for the saving being smaller than officers expected? A The older lamps could not be dimmed below half brightness. B The council switched some lamps off entirely. C Some lamps were returned to full brightness after residents complained. D Police recorded no rise in burglary on the dimmed roads. E The dimming began at 22.00 rather than at midnight.