Wirral Council says that its in-house and contracted teams have been working hard to get the borough’s network of street lights working at its best, as the darker seasons move in.

Over the last few months, contracted teams have installed almost 200 new columns and in-house teams have attended almost 600 street light faults, replaced 200 lanterns, and installed close to 1,000 traffic bollards.

And a new map reporting system has now been introduced to help make reporting of faults and tracking repairs to streetlights easier and quicker for those residents who do notice a fault.

Cllr Liz Grey, Chair of Environment, Climate Emergency and Transport Committee at Wirral Council, said: “The work that has been undertaken over the last few months has all been in preparation for these darker months and supports the on-going work to replace our network with LED lights that will enable the council to sustain a safe but also efficient network that will be much more environmentally friendly.

“I hope this new and simplified map reporting system will help make it easier for the council and residents to work together to ensure the borough is looking and operating at its best.”

All preparation works are in addition to the works being completed under Phase 2 of the council’s LED Street Lighting Replacement programme.

The programme is almost halfway through replacing all of the borough’s streetlights with new energy efficient LED lights, since starting in September last year.

The two-year LED Replacement programme, being delivered by the council’s supplier SSE Enterprise, will see more than £10 million invested in Wirral’s street light infrastructure and aims to replace 28,000 street light lanterns and 9,200 street light columns by Autumn 2021.

Residents can view more about the progress of this programme by visiting the council’s website.

The council determines its street light repairs using a risk-based priority approach and as a result some faults are not attended immediately if they are not in a high priority location or are scheduled for repair in the LED programme.

The new reporting system allows residents to report a faulty street light and to view the network of street lights on a map, select a street light that might need repair, see if a street light has already been reported or if there is any imminent work scheduled.

The new system aims to help residents work with the council to help improve the borough’s street light network.

View the map and report a street light