Street lighting plays a major role in our community. It enhances public safety, encourages people to use the streets at night and improves the look of an area.
Our Street Lighting department is responsible for ensuring that all street lighting associated with the public highways is kept in good working order. This involves regular inspection, preventative maintenance, and repairing faults identified as a result of its own inspection or from information received from the public.
Reporting a fault
Unfortunately, despite regular inspections, faults inevitably occur. If you discover a faulty street light, you can report it to us online.
Alternatively, call Street Lighting Customer Care on 01495 235789.
To help locate and address the fault as quickly as possible it would be useful if you could provide us with the street light column number, road and location.
How long will it take to repair?
Our contractor, Centre Great Ltd is required to repair faults in the following timescales:
- Regular faults within 4 working days of being notified
- More than 2 faults in an area within 2 working days of being notified
- Accidental damage where a street light is considered unsafe or where there is exposed electrical wiring, within 2 hours of being notified
However there are situations where a repair may take longer. The fault may be due to an underground cable fault or other circumstances out of our control such as a failed electricity supply. The response times for failures in the Western Power Distribution electrical supplies are different and can take up to 8 working days in addition to the initial visit by our contractor.
Where works require an excavation in the footpath or road we are also obliged by law to seek public utilities information identifying the location of underground services prior to carrying out any works. This information typically takes 28 days to obtain and is in addition to the contractors normal repair time.
Replacement and improvement programme
There is currently a stock of over 28,000 lighting columns and illuminated signs within the county borough. Many of these are now over 30 years old and have passed their useful operational life. To prevent these installations deteriorating to a point where they become dangerous, our replacement and improvement programme is currently prioritising the replacement of deteriorated lighting columns and unreliable cable networks rather than installing lighting in unlit areas or replacing street lighting in areas that are in acceptable electrical and structural condition but optically poor.
Lighting in new housing development
Installation of street lighting in a new housing development is not our responsibility. It is the responsibility of the site developers. Where we have agreed to adopt the road network, the developer is required to install the street lighting to a standard agreed prior to us adopting it. However, we cannot insist on the installation of street lighting whilst the site is being developed.
Lighting in private unadopted roads is not our responsibility and property owners must make their own arrangements to light the roads and footpaths.
Design and installation
All replacement lighting installations we commission are designed to meet or exceed the requirements detailed in British Standard's BS5489 'Road Lighting' and BS7671 'Requirements for Electrical Installations'.
When deciding where to place lighting columns, we always try to minimise their visual intrusion on the surrounding area by installing them at boundary lines or at the ends of buildings. However, in some cases, either due to the size of the adjacent building or the requirement of the British Standards, this it not always possible.
We also have statutory powers to attach lighting equipment directly on to private property, but these powers are generally only used if it is not practical to light the public highway by any other reasonable means. Where possible we will endeavour to come to an agreement with any resident complaining about the location of street lighting, but the safety of road users (both vehicle and pedestrian) and compliance with British Standards must take priority in determining the location of street lighting.
Further information
For further information or advice about street lighting, contact the Street Lighting Customer Care line on 01495 235789 during normal office hours or email streetlighting@caerphilly.gov.uk.