Waterford Council’s Director of Servies for Transport, Gabriel Hynes, raised a significant issue at the recent Council Plenary meeting when he commented that the underground cables for thousands of lights across Waterford are not considered safe, and that it will cost between €20m and €40 million to bring them up to standard.
“We have 18,000 public lights. At this stage we have 14,000 of those public lights on LEDs and we are getting considerable energy savings in relation to that,” explained Mr. Hynes.
“We have 4,000 public lights approximately that are linked to concentric cables, which is an underground cable that is not eligible, that is not safe.
“We estimate to sort those 4,000 lights out it’s in the region of €5,000 to €10,000 per public light. That leaves us with a bill in the region of €20m-€40 million to sort out our underground public lighting issue,” he said.
A legacy issue
“We will be certainly going to the exchequer in relation to getting annual funding to deal with the concentric cable issue.”
Speaking to The Munster Express, the Director of Services explained that the 4,000 lights across the County of Waterford cannot be converted to LEDs with their current cabling.
Director Hynes also outlined the reasons these cables are considered unsafe, saying that they had two cores and no earth, which is a significant safety risk if the cables become perished.
The Director highlighted that these cables were not laid by Waterford Council but were inherited from the ESB circa 2009. The €5,000 to €10,000 estimate per light is due largely to the groundworks required to dig up cables and refinish the surface.
This problem is not limited to Waterford and a national report is currently being drafted. The cost of replacing these dangerous cables nationally is estimated to be between €750m and €1bn.
“What we have been doing is that when there’s an issue we go in and replace the cable ourselves with the Council’s money, but that’s just not sustainable. We just don’t have the resources,” Mr. Hynes told this newspaper.
“It will require exchequer funding.”
Health and Safety
Independent Councillor Joe Kelly has raised the issue of public lighting outages on multiple occasions. Cllr. Kelly is the Chairman of the Residents Association in Hillview.
He told The Munster Express that Hawthorn Drive on his home estate is currently without any public lights and has been that way for the past eight weeks.
“This is a major safety issue. There are about 20 houses affected, nobody is under 50 and most of the people living there are in their 60s,” Cllr. Kelly said.
“These areas are in complete darkness. There are safety concerns for people just leaving their houses after dark, and concerns for the safety of the houses themselves. Even people driving and pedestrians, there in darkness. This is a major issue.
“And it’s not the people’s fault,” continued Cllr. Kelly. “the ordinary people that are working, paying their property tax, paying their car tax, this has nothing to do with them.
“This has happened because either the cables were not up to scratch when they were installed or they were not maintained properly. This has nothing to do with ordinary people going about their lives. It’s those people who have to suffer now, and it is just not good enough,” Cllr. Kelly added.
Along with some of his councillor colleagues, Cllr. Kelly has been frustrated at the costs of public projects in recent months.
“The costs of public infrastructure here is off the scale. There’s something seriously wrong when one bus shelter costs more than some people earn in a year,” he said.
Cllr. Kelly was referring to recent reports that Waterford Council are legally obliged to install bus shelters from the NTA which cost €30,000 each.
“I’m calling for interim funding to address the immediate needs of Waterford in relation to concentric cables, while we wait on the national report. All this waiting for reports has to stop, what’s needed is action,” Cllr. Kelly added.
AARON KENT
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme
