Almost 100 people have been injured in crashes on dark Cheshire roads where streetlights were not switched on since 2010.

Sixty-seven nighttime collisions have occurred on the county’s unlit roads during that period, according to data from the Department for Transport.

These caused 91 injuries with nine accidents resulting in serious injuries to those involved.

As many as 61 of these injuries have happened in the past two years, with 36 in 2013 and 25 in 2014.

Cheshire East has seen more than twice as many crashes on roads with unlit lights than Cheshire West and Chester since 2010 with 65 compared to the latter’s 26.

National increase

The number of people injured in accidents happening at places where street lights should have been lit but weren’t has risen steadily over the past five years in Britain despite the fact that the number of accidents in total has decreased.

There were 1,206 such injuries in 2014 – an 18 per cent increase on the 1,022 injuries from 2013 and a 66 per cent rise compared to the 728 in 2010.

In total 4,889 people have been injured across 3,638 accidents on roads with unlit street lights since 2010.

As many as 67 of these crashes resulted in at least one fatality with 23 of these occurring in 2014.