Islanders’ safety fears over street light wires
Islay residents’ were left in the dark and their safety in jeopardy after a junction box was left hanging off a pole with wires exposed, according to an island councillor.
In December, people living in Harbour Street, Port Ellen, lost power to their street lighting. Residents raised concerns and power was eventually restored, but a junction box was left dangling in midair.
When complaints were made to Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks and Argyll and Bute Council’s street lighting departments, neither side took responsibility for the ‘bodge job’ said Councillor Alastair Redman and neither was willing to carry out a proper repair, he said.
‘Clearly it shouldn’t have been left like that.
‘It was a bodge job. It was dodgy but no one took responsibility for it,’ said Councillor Redman.
Councillor Redman said that after contacting Argyll and Bute Council he received official confirmation the council had not carried out the work.
He was told: ‘We will not be instructing our staff to fix this.’ Instead the council advised people should call SSE to report the fault.
After the issue was passed on to Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks it sent out an engineer to check it for safety but reported back it was streetlighting cables, making it the council’s responsibility.
The SSE worker had taped it up and had strapped it onto the pole to stop it flapping about.
However, after The Oban
Times made contact, a spokesperson from Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) said: ‘As the local electricity distributor we are responsible for the cables and wires which feed the electricity to the local streetlighting infrastructure; the lighting is under the jurisdiction of Argyll and Bute Council.
‘Safety is our number one priority and in conjunction with the council, we are currently working together to ensure that this matter is resolved as safely and as promptly as possible.’
An Argyll and Bute spokesperson updated the situation on Monday and said the improvement to the cabling had now been made.
Councillor Redman said: ‘Everyone was relieved to get the streetlights back on but they should not have been left in danger.’