Maintaining streetlights

Question

Hi everyone, my small rural Council has two streetlights within the Parish and pays for the electricity used.
Other than paying the electricity supplier what else is expected?
Should there be a maintenance plan?
What are the mandatory responsibilities if any?
Is there anything else Council should be doing?

Legal responsibilities? Insurance?

Costs if anyone would like to share.....

I would appreciate any response as I would like to raise this with Council.

Thank you

Answer 1

All of my councils are responsible for their street lights. These assets should be covered by an inspection and maintenance contract with a contractor suitably qualified to work on the public power network, with annual safety inspections. You should also have suitable emergency call-outs as part of the contract, for example if a car hits a column at 2.00 on a Sunday morning and it needs to be made safe. The contractor should also be able to provide you with an estimated remaining lifetime for each light. Finally, you should ensure that your insurance company is aware of these lights and that they are fully covered in your public liability insurance package.

You may be able to access maintenance cover at a more affordable rate through your district or county council, or through a shared arrangement with neighbouring parishes. On a large contract, you'd expect to pay around £50 per light per year for cleaning, inspection and testing to comply with the legal requirements, but individually I suspect you'd pay a lot more.

Comments

Really useful, many thanks Dave.

Answer 2

Who do you pay your electricity charges to? Many Principal Authorities act as streetlighting authorities and provide & maintain lighting for all areas within their borough boundary except for  non adopted highways.  So you first need to establish if that is the case in your parish too. If it isn't the case I would suggest asking your questions to the Highways dept of your Principal Authority and ask them also to establish who acts as the streetlighting authority in your Parish.

Comments

Hi Graeme we pay charges to Scottish Power. From what I can gather the subject of streetlights have been 'touched on' for years but due to the anticipated high costs just pushed aside for another day. A new Cllr has been broaching the subject but is in conflict with his mate who wants to keep the precept low. All good PC fun and games.

Answer 3

I would have thought the question as to why the PC has the apparent responsibility for the street lights in the first place? If they are on the highway then surely they come under the LA and if on an un-adopted  road then the responsibility of the property owners adjoining the road.

Comments

Thanks for your comment. From what I can gather it is something historic that now requires attention hence my questions. Thanks again, Helen

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Many villages had no lights, so parish councils installed them. One of my councils has 163 lights!

Answer 4

Hi,
So we have 17 street lights with EON and recently found out that almost all of them are now of an age where there are no longer any stock of the bulbs or other parts. We researched grants and were successful in receiving some funding from both the Borough and County Councils to make the lights more environmentally friendly by changing to LED.

EON are responsible for all of lights on behalf of the county and so we were able to negotiate a fair maintenance contract with them.
That said - PC lighting is footpath not highway and so technically any responsible and qualified person could offer a maintenance contract.

In regards to insurance you'll likely find that they fall within your overall insurance cover but worth checking.
Parish Online is a great tool for tracking assets and alerts for when assets need reviewing and maintaining etc

Comments

Thanks Chloe really useful information to add to what has already been said by others. We have one light situated on the pavement and another on a grass verge on a neighbouring road hence my concerns. Thanks again