Cheshire East highways chiefs have failed to repair around 15 faulty street lamps near one of the busiest road junctions in the region – despite knowing for five months.
Several motorists have reported the faulty lighting on the A500 on approach to junction 16 of the M6 as well as the B5078 off the same roundabout.
One driver said Cheshire East told him they did not even realise they owned the lighting, as it was initially missing from the council’s “street lighting asset map”.
The motorist, from Nantwich, said: “I made them aware over five months ago along with other people via Fix My Street, and still they have not repaired any of the assets at this location and also the B5078.
“Around 15 street lamps do not work that are owned by CEC.
“CEC did not know they owned them until I made them aware the assets were missing from their steering lighting asset map last year.
“And they have no planned timeline on getting these street lights working!
“In their own material on their website they say ‘there is no statutory requirement on local authorities in the UK to provide public lighting, however, if lighting is provided the council has a responsibility to maintain the lighting in a safe way’.”
In a response to a Freedom of Information request, the authority said: “We do not carry out any routine inspections for the repair of street lighting and we do not have a remote lighting monitoring system. We have a Structural Inspection and Testing programme which is carried out every six years.
“This is only for lighting assets that have been adopted by Cheshire East Council and have been added to our asset mapping system.
“At this time there is no date for the repairs due to other works in the area being undertaken by other utilities and National Highways.
“This means we cannot currently gain a permit to work at this location.
“We are attempting to work with National Highways and other utilities to coordinate our work with theirs to minimise network disruption and to assess the fault.”
We approached Cheshire East Council for a statement on March 24.
As of today we are still awaiting a response.
I bet if you were unlucky enough to damage one in a traffic incident, they would soon manage to take owner ship and bill you for its repair.
The list goes on for this councils inadequate maintenance of our highways ,they will unfortunately soon find themselves in court on the account of at the very least causing a serious accident due to negligence.
CEC – what a joke!
This article needs an urgent response from all our Political Leaders concerning the
complete disregard of public concerns. They are happy to give good news interviews/comments but hide when it is bad. Will there be a response?