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"Oh there’s a little amusing story, now I cannot guarantee it’s truth, but it was told to me by a rather respected early resident, of how Letchworth is lit by water.
I’ll try and tell it as he told me.. In the very early days there wasn’t an urban district council, but there was a parish council. And some of the parish council members were also staff or something to do with the First Garden City which supplied water and gas and the street lighting was mainly, I think, entirely gas.
Anyway there came an occasion when they wanted to improve the street lighting, but being a parish council they could only spend a few pence in the pound, from the rates, and they’d reached their limits.
So they decided they would surreptitiously put up the water rate and put up some more street lamps at the same time and that’s how Letchworth came to be lit by water!"
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