Concerns continue to be raised regarding the standard of public lighting across Waterford City and County.
Councillors in West Waterford took aim at the Executive at this month's meeting of the Dungarvan and Lismore District.
They believe many rural areas in West Waterford are being left in darkness with no signs of the situation being addressed.
Fine Gael Councillor Damien Geoghegan has requested an in depth report.
"I mean the actual reporting mechanism that's in place is quite good. We can go on to the system and we can report that lights are out but the number of lights are now out for months on end. Could I ask that a report would be compiled in relation to the lights that are out at the moment and tell us which ones are a simple fix, which ones are maybe just a bulb needs replacing and which ones actually do involve major works with underground cabling and that? I think that would be helpful from our point of view."
Cllr. Geoghegan and Cllr. Joe O'Riordan (Independent) also drew attention to inadequate lighting at Dungarvan's Grattan Square.
"It's actually dark in the Square and at Christmas time especially when you had people out and about and they might have been merry going around the place. It's actually like Russian roulette like because they're running across the pedestrian crossing which is of course a shared space and it's actually not a pedestrian crossing. Is there any plans like to improve the lighting in the square?", queried Cllr. O'Riordan.
"There was a light out for a couple of years there right. We were bringing it up here constantly. That particular light has been fixed and now one of the other three lights has gone out. I'm not so sure about that being a legacy issue either because Grattan Square was only repaired 10 years ago so maybe you could take a look at that", added Cllr. Geoghegan.
'Bottom of the list'
Fine Gael Councillor Niamh O'Donovan says there are multiple lights in some areas that haven't been addressed in months.
"There's actually 58 lights on the system at the moment in Lismore as being out. Four in Villierstown, three in Ballyduff, three in Ballysaggart, one in Tallow, four going into Cappoquin, four in Affane, fourteen going through Cappoquin and five in Ballymacarbry. When is the lighting going to be fixed? We're at the bottom of the list realistically looking at those number wise."
Labour Party Councillor Thomas Phelan was critical of lighting on one busy Dungarvan street.
"Is there any update as to when the street lights on Richard A Walsh Street will be fixed? They've been out for months and months at this stage. It's a very busy spot by night with the cinema and a rear entrance to a hotel car park on that street so it's imperative that that street would be lit well and the sooner the better."
Sinn Fein Councillor Donnchadh Mulcahy was also unimpressed with long standing issues in Lismore.
"The lights on Lismore Bridge, this has been raised in the past, I think they're out now with over three months. We had Santa on the Strand there over the winter period and it was a health and safety matter the fact that the lights weren't working going up and down. I was wondering if we could put some pressure on this to get it done sooner rather than later. It is a heritage town with the lighting gone in it and also with the road being due to be redone. Is there an update on when that road from the monument to Lismore Bridge is going to be done?"
Response
In a statement, Waterford City and County Council outlined their current position.
Waterford City and County Council is one of twenty-one Local Authorities taking part in the National Public Lighting Energy Efficiency Project (PLEEP) to upgrade public lighting to LED.
In the Southern region 77,000 public lights will be retrofitted to LED and Waterford City and County Council is working with the lead local authority, Cork County Council, along with partner local authorities in Clare, Kerry and Limerick.
The primary objective of the project is to maximise energy savings, reduce CO2 emissions and enhance efficiency across the public lighting network by replacing the traditional light fittings with LED luminaires.
Projected energy savings of 50% will be made through the retrofitting program and 786 tonnes of CO2 emissions will be saved per year, which will significantly contribute to meeting Waterford City and County Council's climate action target reduction of 51% in CO2 emissions by 2030.
Funding for the retrofitting of the LED lighting in Waterford is through the Department of Environment's “Climate Action Fund” and Waterford City and County Council.
The process of retrofitting 10,000 public lights across Waterford city and county began in August last year and is anticipated will be substantially completed by August this year.
Fergus Gleeson, Director of Services, Waterford City and County Council said, "Waterford has set out an extremely ambitious strategy in its Climate Action Plan and this project aligns closely to the goal of establish Waterford as a decarbonisation zone (DZ) by 2040.
"The implementation of PLEEP copper fastens our commitment to reducing energy consumption and associated CO2 emissions. The project will also reduce the incidences of lighting outage when complete and reduce excess lighting with over designed installations.
"With advances in LED technology, the improved public lighting will add to enhanced public safety and an improved visual environment over traditional public lighting," Mr. Gleeson added.
Le Chéile Lighting Specialist, acting on behalf of Cork County Council as the lead authority, has been contracted to carry out the public lighting works across Waterford city and county.
The company stated that "the works in the most part will present little or no disruption to the public or businesses within your area, and power will not be interrupted. Some deployment of temporary traffic management may be required in areas of high traffic volume or narrow roads to facilitate safe access to streetlights for work crews."
PLEEP
A secondary objective of the PLEEP is to survey and collect data on the condition of the public lighting infrastructure to enable the region's local authorities to strategically plan and invest in the upgrading of the public lighting underground infrastructure. This survey work has identified a number of infrastructure issues that need to be addressed before retrofit to LED can be carried out.
Deregulation within the electrical industry in 2009 resulted in Local Authorities taking over ownership from ESB Networks of underground cabling infrastructure servicing public lighting columns. This included concentric cables which had been installed since the 1950’s and represents around 15% of Waterford City and County Council's public lighting cabling inventory.
Concentric cabling doesn’t comply with current electrical standards and where cable faults occur, the cabling must be replaced in full. As this cabling is at the end of its service life it is prone to faults.
While Waterford City and County Council will make every effort to ensure a timely repair is carried out, the time required to restore these cable faults can be considerable given the necessity to provide new ducts and cables and excavate pavement and footpaths to reinstate same.
The work is site specific and timelines for repair can be more than 3 months because the work is dependent on availability of funding and a specialised contractor. Technical human resources in the private sector are constrained at this moment in time.
In the short term to ensure public lights are repaired as faults occur, Waterford City and County Council will continue to maintain all public lighting and endeavour to keep the incidents of non-functional lights below 2% at any given time.
Public lighting faults can be logged on the Deadsure app or via Waterford City and County Council's website https://waterfordcouncil.ie/services/roads-transport/public-lighting/
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