So Your Streetlights Don’t Work – What is Essex County Council Going To Do About It?

So your streetlights don't work - What is ECC going to do about it? 

I recently attended a Place Services and Economic Growth Policy and Scrutiny Committee meeting in which we discussed the rollout of new LED lighting across Essex. It's fair to say, there's been some problems. These problems have been caused by supply chain issues which weren't forseen by Essex County Council and Essex Highways and has resulted in the delay to the rollout programme. 

But why don't your existing streetlights work now as LED's are just replacements. At the meeting the portfolio holder, Cllr Lee Scott, explains that there is a shortage of replacement sodium bulbs for the existing lighting and they have been harvesting the old bulbs when replacing with LED (hope this makes sense) to use for repairs.

I've asked Cllr Scott, how will this be addressed...watch the video for his response.

NB: The LED rollout is currently due to be completed in Rochford in Q1 2024

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About the author 

James Newport

Essex County Councillor for Rayleigh North, Rochford District Councillor for Downhall & Rawreth and Rayleigh Town Councillor for Sweyne.

  • Finally had our streetlamps repaired this week after many months of darkness – 3 out of a total of six streetlamps in our road had failed.

    The FixMyStreet website seems to be useless for reporting anything like this. Eventually I used Essex Highway’s website to report the issue, but it provides no feedback on timing for planned repairs and doesn’t seem to speed things up.

    In the end, my wife phoned somebody to complain, highlighted the fact that we have no pavements in our stretch of the road which requires us to walk in the road, and told them we were worried about our daughters having to walk home in the dark. The repair was carried out a few weeks later – not sure if it was the phone call that finally triggered the work, but she did receive a follow up e-mail when the work was carried out, so maybe it helped. Plus, none of the many other broken streetlamps in neighbouring streets have been repaired, so it does seem like our road was lucky.

    • Hi, ECC prefer us to use the their system as it was believed at one point that the fixmystreet website needed the data to be entered manually into ECC system when they received it. On ECC’s system – a new customer-facing system is being rolled out in the very near future so I understand which should give more insight. If there are safety concerns please get in touch with me and I will do my best to get the repair expedited.

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