Faulty Street Lights

On our estate there are three street lights not working.The contract has not been handed over to the council or Airtricity and the developer has gone bust due to the recession.
What options are open to get these lights working,are the replacement bulbs/cells expensive and would Airtricity repair them on a payment basis from a resident?

sincere113

Someone must own the lamps because they will be powered by a private cable to the street lights which is individually supplier metered. If the bill wasn't being paid by a private company then they would be cut off. If they are still owned by the developer and they have gone, then after a while they will be cut off.

Your Local authority has an obligation to provide lighting but this is dependant upon population density. If you are one of a small number of people living in the area then they have no obligation to provide lighting.

In terms of costs in getting them working then that depends greatly on what type of lighting is used. SOX, SON Metal Halide...... The major cost here would be getting a lighting contractor to site. The job would require a lift and a 2 man team + parts, (thats if they agreed to look at them in the first place because the lights are not your property).

However fault examples :
Cable fault in luminaire - 2 minute job, no parts required.
Faulty ballast, switch gear and lamp, €200 for quality parts.

My advice would be to speak to your local council and report the lamps not working (nothing more), they will probably send out the contractor to fix them and not realise they are not their property.

I rang the council and the first thing they did was check if the estate was handed over to them. They said they would ring the developer and put a bit of pressure on him as he was still paying the bill for the street lights.