Shedding light on streetlamps

Alan Cleaver wanders down the dark and twisted lanes to getting a street lamp fixed.

Lights on please

It's always struck me that there's no need for audit commissions or independent inspectors when it comes to councils. Just ask them to repair a street lamp and see how long it takes. So it was nice to see someone in our paper two weeks ago praising the county council for repairing a street lamp very quickly. This week reader Willie Bell of Arlecdon echoes my own bemusement at how you get streetlamps fixed and when you can expect the repair to be done.

Beside my house, two lamps went out at the end of January this makes the Square very dark and a little frightening for lone walkers. A quick Google search led me to a page on Copeland's website saying to phone them with any repairs. "It's not us" said the helpful woman at Copeland who kindly offered to email the county council about the light. They've since updated their website.

A month later I logged on to the county council website to find out what I could about when the lights might be repaired. There's no phone number but a rather over-complicated system of reporting streetlight faults. This I did on March 1st but so far there's still no repair and no email or call back to me explaining when and if it will be done. My confidence however isn't boosted by the website's admission that street lamps "may fall under the responsibility of the highways agency, Carlisle City Council or Cumbria highways. Please refer to who's responsible for your roads if your require this information." But who is reponsible for my roads?

I only want a couple of bulbs replaced. If it's so complicated to do that what chance have we got of getting a hospital built?