Looking around the town it’s not too difficult to notice how many street lights aren’t working or have some form of fault, whether it is a cover plate missing exposing bare electrics or the light itself is on the blink. Faulty street lights are maybe something we pass by without ever really noticing until someone points them out, admittedly if it was one outside your own home it would be hardly impossible to not notice.

In the last six months I’ve noticed more and more street lights around the town that aren’t working and with the nights now starting to draw in it will become ever more noticeable. So what is the reason there seems to be an increasing number of street lights out of action, is there some local council ploy to delay fixing faults in the hope of saving electicity?

In May this year Northamptonshire County Council started to switch off some of its street lights which would see about one in two of county council owned lights being switched off in the hope of saving £2 million per year. As well as making cash savings the initiative was hoped to help the county council reduce its energy consumption and carbon footprint. Other councils including Suffolk, Essex & Leicestershire have piloted similar schemes though no plans here in North Lincolnshire to do likewise. 

Back in Scunthorpe it seems that not only the fault repairing of street lights seems to be taking longer but also the replacing of damaged street lighting columns has also become less of an urgency, earlier this year a lighting column on Ashby Road, outside the Baptist Church and directly opposite the council headquarters was knocked over, this was removed and is awaiting a replacement. There’s also two lights at the entrance to the newly opened Pods Sports Academy that seem to have been out for an age, all these are directly under the noses of the council at their Pittwood House base and yet the lights remain out. Although the council do have a rolling programme of maintenance in most cases they will only become aware of a fault with a street light if it is reported to them, having said that in October last year residents of Fotherby Road and parts of Enderby Road had to endure over a week with no street lighting at all due to an electrical fault with engineers having difficulty in rectifying the problem.

As mentioned, there are numerous faulty street lights around the town and people tend to only report a fault with one if it directly affects them, if it’s outside there house.

In North Lincolnshire there are approximately 22,800 lighting columns and 2,300 illuminated signs and bollards and any fault with them can be reported via the councils  Online reporting form which can be accessed by the following link,

http://www.northlincs.gov.uk/AF/an/default.aspx/RenderForm/?F.Name=bo5z__o-pii

Alternately but only if classed as an emergency, outside of normal office hours, contact 01724 276444.

An emergency can be classed as:

• Three or more columns in a row out
• Column damaged, cover plate missing, wires exposed
• Column damaged by a road traffic accident
• Lantern head hanging off
• A traffic bollard knocked down or missing.

Do readers think the council is doing a sufficient job in street light maintenance, should they allow for more or less in the budget for lighting or should they follow the likes of Northamptonshire County Council and look at turning various street lights off altogether?