OAP waited a year for council to change bulb ... so he did it himself!
WHEN two local councils both tried to wash their hands of replacing a pair of broken street light bulbs, it was time for pensioner Colin Letchford to show his mettle.
As a local councillor, the retired teacher could have fired off a strongly-worded letter to the town hall.
But this part-time politician was made of stronger stuff – and on the basis that he had changed many a light bulb at home, bringing the residents of Marine Parade out of darkness ought to be a doddle.
So, armed with two 240V bulbs he had bought online, the 68-year-old bolted a decorator’s bench to a plywood platform on the roof rack of his Citroen, donned three pairs of rubber gloves and did the work himself.
Ignoring a bright yellow sign marked ‘danger of death’, Mr Letchford made short work of the task which the two squabbling councils have failed to tackle for more than a year.
But after Mr Letchford changed the light bulb without incident, the council still complained that ‘on no account should residents – including councillors – repair streetlights’.
Yesterday the independent councillor had no regrets about stepping into the dispute, which centres on the seafront street in Canvey Island, Essex being private and unadopted.
‘Someone has maintained these lights since they were installed 50 years ago or so, but no- one was owning up and admitting it was their responsibility,’ he said yesterday. The saga began 12 months ago when one of four street lights on Marine Parade stopped working, with a second bulb failing in November.
Residents of the road’s 15 or so houses reported the problem to Essex County Council, which last replaced the bulbs in 2012, but it denied responsibility and passed them to local Castle Point Council.
However the borough authority insisted the bulbs were a matter for its county colleagues – and so the matter reached an impasse. Mr Letchford tried contacting highways chiefs at the county council, to no avail.
‘I even offered to fund them to do it for me but they still said no and that they didn’t have the resources’, he said.
‘After going through all the proper means of trying to get it sorted I had just reached the point of desperation and decided to sort it out myself.
‘I’ve replaced plenty of bulbs at home without any mishap, and these ones are just a bit bigger and higher up.’ First, he bought two low pressure sodium bulbs online for £18.99 each, then he improvised a cherry picker – by fixing a decorator’s bench to a plywood platform on the roof rack of his Citroen.
Then Mr Letchford – wearing a high-visibility jacket for added credibility as well as his gloves – was then able to reach the 20ft lighting column, unclip the cover and change the bulb, and even gave the glass a clean.
Standing guard was resident Barry Hughes, 65, who said: ‘We’re so grateful to him and we actually tried to discourage him from doing it but he was determined.’
David Marchant, chief executive of Castle Point Council, said it was still working to establish whose responsibility the lights were.
But he warned: ‘ On no account should residents including councillors carry out works to repair streetlights - it is potentially very dangerous to themselves and others.
‘This work needs to be done by specialist lighting contractors.’
Essex County Council confirmed it too was working to resolve the dispute.
‘Just a bit bigger and higher up’