At the most recent sitting of the Athlone Moate Municipal District, Cllr Aengus O’Rourke, raised the matter of public lighting in the Athlone area and expressed his “deep frustration” at the ongoing lack of progress in repairing long standing faulty public lights.
“If lights are not working people understandably assume the bulb is gone. And, when that light is not fixed for months, people understandably become frustrated at the council. However, in many cases there are electrical issues and the only ones with the power to repair lights with electrical issues are the ESB. In fact, the ESB expressly forbid the council or contractors to interfere with their power infrastructure,” Cllr O’Rourke said.
The councillor noted examples which remain of concern, namely issues with faults at the mini pillars, blown connections, eroded cables and local connection matters.
“Some of our infrastructure is decades old and it needs substantial work to replace and repair it. Westmeath County Council has rolled out new LED infrastructure to many areas and estates in recent years and that work continues, but it will take some years yet to replace all of our public lighting.
“Where bulbs are gone, these are replaced within days by our contractors Electric Skyline. Where more substantial infrastructural issues are discovered, the ESB are required to do the work. It can take several weeks, even months for the ESB to find the time to address our public lighting issues when they occur. Therefore, this is why we need a new approach to the maintenance of our public lighting network.
“As a growing, dynamic and busy commercial town, we can not afford to have vast areas of our urban area sitting in darkness for months on end. For example, half of the lights in Retreat Park have not been working for several months now, all the lights along the Army Barracks wall on Elliott Road were out for much of November and all of December, while up to five lights are dead close to the front of the Railway Station since October.
“There are up to 20 other cases I could point to where lights remain dead in Athlone. This situation is not good enough,” Cllr O’Rourke added,
Concluding, Cllr O’Rourke, proposed the hosting of a meeting with ESB, Electric Skyline and the Transportation section of Westmeath County Council, the purpose of which to conceive a plan that deals with these legacy “dead light” situations in Athlone and to better manage such situations going forward.
