Public lighting again comes under scrutiny

As issues with public lighting continue in the west Waterford region, it has been revealed that on average 25% of the public lights within the area will go out of order each year.

The matter was raised recently as in Dungarvan ‘ festoon lights’ along the causeway seem to be still causing issues, while elsewhere, Cllr Thomas Phelan noted that there ‘doesn’t seem to be much progress’ with regards to streetlights.

Senior engineer with Waterford City and County Council, Gabriel Hynes, advised that between January and March this year, contractors have repaired or closed out 1,500 issues with public lights.

“Having said that, 1,200 public lights would have gone out of order during that period of time as well. We’re making progress and we are aware there are still legacy ones out there,” Mr Hynes said.

He went on to note that 25% of public lights go out every year, meaning that around 4,000 public lights may go out due to a fuse or bulb blowing. It was noted that this figure excludes underground issues experienced by the council.

Cllr Declan Doocey acknowledged that there will be issues concerning public lighting, but said that the ‘biggest grievance’ is the delays with the contractor, as he recalled previously calling for their replacement.

“We understand that there's going to be breakages and lack of service but our biggest grievance over the last number of meetings was the delay in fixing them and the lack of responsibility taken by our contractor," Cllr Doocey said. “If you were in any other business and dealing with any other customer, it was unsatisfactory. We mightn’t be back in July, but whatever councillors do come back (after elections), they can't be expected to put up with the same lack of service”.

Mr Hynes reminded elected members that the underground system for public lighting is legacy related, which has seen ‘difficult issues’ arise.