£1m project for Hull street lights in ‘poor state of repair’
FEARS COLUMNS MAY TOPPLE
COUNCILLORS have agreed to spend £1m to test the structural safety of thousands of street lights across Hull.
The move is aimed at avoiding potentially costly legal action in the event of someone being injured by a column toppling over.
A new Hull City Council report says the authority is at “high risk to potential litigation” if a structural failure happens because it currently has “unidentified assets in a poor state of repair”.
At the moment street lights are prioritised for renewal on their age rather than their physical condition.
As a result, the council holds little information on how many potentially dangerously unstable lamp posts are still in use.
The new testing regime has been triggered by a current council programme aimed at replacing old street lighting columns failing to keep pace with thousands of columns reaching the end of their design life.
In recent years, more than 500 columns have been replaced in Hull because of their condition.
Concerns have also been raised about the stability of some columns following recent flooding events.
The decision also follows a council investigation into the collapse of a lighting tower at Hull KR’S Craven Park in 2018. The stadium was forced to temporarily close after the floodlight pylon toppled over during high winds.
As the stadium’s owners, the council ended up having to spend £126,000 to replace the damaged tower.
The new £1m testing programme will run over the next two years with checks being carried out on nearly 28,000 lighting columns, which are now more than 12 years old.
Ultrasound testing will be used on the majority to measure thickness and levels of corrosion.
However, more intensive static load testing will be carried out on around 780 lighting columns mainly in the city centre and major roads with high traffic and pedestrians.
Councillors gave the go-ahead this week after a report said the work was needed to “identify any assets that could pose the greatest risk of litigation should failure occur”.
It added: “The gathering of condition data via the structural testing regime will provide timescales for the replacement of columns based on informed decisions regards the level of investment and the period of time funds can be spread over, thus vastly reducing the possibility of litigation or legal action through the structural failure of an asset.”
Speaking at the meeting, council leader Councillor Daren Hale said: “It’s always a good idea to have lights that do not fall on the populace.”