Forums Forums Wirral Information Wirral Council Wirral Street Lights - Fail

It is reported that 1723 street lights are not working out of the total of 37,470. The council is about to do a check, I think they are in for a shock as I've been driving round looking at street lights quite a bit recently.

Ignoring the streets that have had the LED conversion, my estimate is that between 20% and 30% of lights are faulty which would make a figure of around 7,500 more realistic. There are areas with five lights out in a row, its just gone mad.

If the contractor is at fault I hope we get some recompense off them.

I reported one a couple of months ago which is still out, in the mean time two more lights have died making a string of three in a row dead.

SOURCE

The council will not be repairing old lights now, they will use what money they have to fit these new LED lights - whether we want them or not. We have them in our street now and they are just too bright....bit no consultation if we wanted them !

But they have a contract in place to repair the old lights.

If the new LED lights are too bright, the brightness is controllable centrally on a lamp by lamp basis.

A significant number of the new LED lights are not working either!

One possible explanation is that I notice a gang installing extremely elegant cast iron Victorian style gas lamps with excellent HPS lighting in them in Rock Park.

It is good to know that the council has its priorities right! Clearly, it is far more important to ensure the lighting is adequate as well as tasteful in a privately owned housing park than it is to illuminate the Rock Ferry bypass which remains a patchwork of LED, vile yellow sodium, and no illumination at all. I walk my dog there, and I see a great deal of council activity going on. Tree surgeons, leaf collection, street cleaning, mowing, brushwood clearance etc. etc. Precious little elsewhere alas!

I am sure the residents are delighted at our generosity!

I have a street light outside my house which has been on during the day for the last four months. As soon as I noticed it I tried to report it on the council website but when I put in the first part of my postcode, CH45, it came up with the list of roads but mine wasn't listed so I had to enter the next road and explain where it actually was in the comments box. Was told it would be sorted within 15 days but nothing happened. Tried again but no result. Rang the council and spoke to a really snotty woman who really couldn't care less who said she had recorded the problem but still nothing has happened. I know it isn't an earth shattering issue but frustrating that so much energy is being wasted during the day.

Same here. Got one that's been out for months and still not been fixed

Had the same problem, reporting the light in the lane, got it reported eventually, they have altered the WBC site to make it more confusing, perhaps so people will give up, the post code part is also confusing Mosslands drive is split into two parts just to make it more confusing, Mosslands Drive Wallasey Village one end and Mosslands Drive Poulton the other end with different postcodes.

You were lucky, the council doesn't even list Gainsborough Rd in their postcode list at all. I wonder if they would notice if I stopped paying my Council Tax

Try the "Fixmystreet" website to report issues. You pinpoint
position on a map or give postcode and put in a brief description and they send a report to Wirral Borough Council immediately and do follow ups. You can also see
other reports for the area.

https://www.fixmystreet.com/

Gainsborough Road (Upton) comes up under CH49

Gainsborough Road (Wallasey) comes up (wrongly!!!) under CH44 instead of CH45

You have to learn to be creative when dealing with our council, misleading information and lies is normal in their world.

Thanks for the tips, I would have never have thought of entering in the wrong postcode to get my correct road!

Results at last, The street lights on our main road have now been sorted.

For nearly three years there was a light out over the road from me, they took the old one down and put new one in, and that was that, lost count of the e mails to council asking when it was going to be finished, then last November a light went out on the other side of the road, so it was getting bit dark by now, reported it, and gets the 15 days [ Why does it take so long?] , 21 days later still no repair, gets on to them again and reminded them of the first one still not sorted, came home one night and all fixed with LED's now i need to wear sunglasses at night, and two days ago one of the lights went out, Ha! Wirral Council,
By the way with most cars fitted with them and streetlights going over to LED's in a few years from now where all going to be blind!, with LED Blindness

I reported two lamps out in my road back in early December via the council website. I got the standard email reply saying it will be attended to within 15 days. I rang the council mid January and got to speak with a curt woman who said there were many others who had priority when it came to street light repair and she suggested I get in touch with my councillor (who I have also written to and had eff all response) Ultimately the woman at the council hung up on me.
I went back onto the website last week to check on 'progress' of my report only to discover it has disappeared and according to the site "there are no outstanding outages in the road in question"
I put through yet another report quoting the job number from the original complaint and yet again got the standard email response. I live in a small cul de sac and 50% of the lights are out so we're plunged in darkness after 5.30pm.
What baffles me is, when there are so many streetlights around that are not working, why are the council replacing ones in perfect working order with the LED ones? And, why not use the bulb from those that were working prior to being replaced, bring them a couple of miles to my road and friggin' put them in the broken lamps outside my house.

I just think they have not got the staff ,because of all these redundancies.
Just keep complaining and it will get done.
I think they are overloaded with complaints.

Because Rock Park is a Conservation area, then the street lighting has to be replaced with like for like. I lived down there for a few years until early last year, and at night I didnt feel safe walking home because that many lights were out.
I reported one that was not working just outside our flat, and it took them over 6 months to repair it!
The guys who eventually repaired it said that its not cast iron that they use now, its just standard metal designed and painted to look authentic as the cast ones were prone to being stolen!

ps. there are a number of social housing properties down there now too, so not sure if its still classed as a private park now?

Sorry Lynda. You have been misinformed. I tested them with a magnet, and they are made of galvanised cast steel or iron - at least the columns are. The cost is roughly the same for either, and in fact the chemical composition and method of fabrication is pretty similar.

The supplier is DW Windsor, and I guess they get them made at a foundry. They are coy about prices but I reckon they cost (including lantern) around £1,000 to £1,500 (Plus installation).

I agree that the lighting there was poor, and needed improvement, but conservation area or not, the new lamp-posts replaced much cheaper and far less grand aluminium ones dating from before the road was adopted by the Council. It appears the trust are more prepared to waive conservation rules when THEY are paying than when we are!

It is still very much a private park, and it was thanks to a councillor who lives there that the roads were eventually adopted, and every house was given a set of top-of-the range railings. Rock Park has done very well out of us in recent years. It is only a matter of time before the esplanade is adopted too, relieving them of the cost of maintaining it. It is currently in a very poor condition, and will cost us a fortune to repair properly!

One thing I WOULD support, is LED lighting in these new lampposts. I would imagine it not too difficult to simulate the wavering light from gas lamps pretty accurately, and they would cost less to run too.

Wirral Council have just fixed one in Redstone Rise Noctorum/Bidston----how do I know---because they have stuck a notice on it to say so. Another waste of money.

typical.

Here is picture of a street light getting fixed that was reported last year.And it is still broken,stays on all day and night.

Any one noticed even when LED lamps have been fitted they are still not working!

They changed Liscard road over to LED's months ago and the very night they were switched on, the lights either side of Parkside didn't work. That's a junction almost in total darkness. I rang Street Scene to report it and was told that they no longer have a facility to report street lamps that aren't working.
Wonderful!
Now that's progress.

The New Ferry bypass remains a patchwork of orange, white and black. A lot of the newly installed LEDs remain in darkness.

I think the idea of controlling them by radio is overcomplicated, overexpensive, and unreliable.

The old light sensing ones are simple and dirt cheap - they are basically a light dependent resistor and a thermal relay - and they work well. I imagine any cost savings by turning the LED lights down or off in the wee small hours is offset by the cost and maintenance of the infrastructure needed to do it.

There is a well tried and tested engineering principle with the acronym 'KISS'. It stands for "Keep It Simple, Stupid". The simplest solution that meets the requirement is the best one.

Years back, I was a regular visitor (on business) to a very charming village in Bucks. I stayed in the local pub and got to know the place quite well. Although the street lights on the passing main road were illuminated, those in the village itself were all non-operational. I asked once why this was so in the pub bar, and was told that they had been installed some years back largely on the insistence of one very local 'incomer' (new resident).

There was an official switch on, and everyone was delighted until the newly illuminated village was the victim of a series of burglaries. It seemed that the light had made things easy for various criminals to steal things from the gardens, and sometimes the houses, and take off without tripping over rose bushes etc. After a month or two, a petition to have them removed was presented to the Parish Council. This was a bit of an embarrassment to them, having just requested their installation, but they agreed to remove the fuses from them so they all went out.

Personally, I found it rather pleasant. You could see the stars, and there was usually enough starlight or moonlight to see your way, and the occasional glow through a curtained window gave the place a nice cosy and safe air.

I often think that these IR switched security lights are counterproductive. Fortunately with the massive number of switching cycles the bulbs last no time and the owners eventually get fed up with replacing them, and blessed darkness returns.

At one time you could e mail the council with faults in the road, streetlights out etc, explaining what the fault is in greater detail, then they got rid of the staff manning the hotlines, and changed the website so can only report faults within 15 words or less, something like that, gone was the choice where you could e mail some deptment,
And i think they have made a tits job of these lights, and don't know how to fix it, my lights have been off since November by me, and on some nights the whole area comes on, then an hour or two later there all off.
But if you are fed up asking the council get on to your local MP and ask nicely, 9 out 10 the problem will get sorted, which i will be doing soon.
As for me, I must be on the Councils "Oh not him again list!"
The number of roads i have had fixed, pothole filled, manhole covers lifted, diesel fuel spills, traffic lights speeded up when takes for ever to change, pavements reflagged, missing signs replaced, and once more left off the Queens Birthday honours list!

Well done!

I'll nominate you next time