Brighter times ahead for historic streets

More than 1,000 street lights – seven per cent of the overall stock – are due to be replaced in the programme of works, which begins in April after York Council agreed to the long-awaited funding in this year’s budget.

It follows a city-wide survey last year which tested more than 9,000 steel columns, with around 500 lights needing to be immediately taken down after they were discovered to be structurally unsound and posing an immediate risk to the public.

About 2,000 more need to be re-inspected within the next few years.

However despite the planned overhaul, council chiefs have moved to reassure residents that York’s old street lights, which are an integral part of the city’s heritage, will be replaced sympathetically and not merely stripped away.

Coun Dafydd Williams, cabinet member for communities and neighbourhoods at York Council, said: “This programme of works is the biggest overhaul of street lights in York since the Victorian times. We’ve allocated £1m in this year’s budget to upgrade and replace street lights that are in need of urgent repair.

“We’ve also taken into account that a lot of York’s street lights are antiques that help to provide York’s unique character.

“So, it’s important that they are replaced right and in order to do this we’re working closely with the Reinvigorate York team on all lights being replaced within the city’s walls and conservation areas.”

Coun Williams told the Yorkshire Post last month that some of the lighting columns already taken down were in such a state of disrepair that they were in danger of falling over.

“There has been chronic under investment in the city’s lighting columns over a number of years,” he said.

“The current situation is leaving whole areas in the dark.”

The overhaul will be carried out by York Council and Amey, the local authority’s streetlights partner, and is due to be completed by the end of the summer.

Works are scheduled to take place in each of York’s 22 Ward areas on a priority basis.

The Reinvigorate board – which has been established to improve and enhance the quality of the city’s public spaces – will meet shortly to agree the best approach for the types and styles of streetlights to be used in the centre and the other 34 conservation areas across the city.

A spokesman for Amey, said: “This investment is a significant step forward in addressing the street lighting issues in York. 

“While our work to survey lighting columns in and around the district is still under way, we are working closely with the council to develop a programme of works which will see the biggest overhaul of the city’s for more than a century.”

The replacement schedule will be available on the council’s website shortly, and in the coming weeks, notification signs will be placed in ward areas to inform residents of when works are expected to begin.

The work on lights in conservation areas is estimated to start in June or July.

The council will also be making regular updates via Twitter on the street lights replacement schedule.

Following the 500 most at risk lights being taken down at the start of this year, the city’s Liberal Democrat opposition party issued a statement criticising the council and saying the work was carried out without warning and without explaining to residents what was happening.

Liberal Democrat spokeswoman for communities and neighbourhoods, Coun Ann Reid, said residents were being put at risk after the street lights were taken down but not immediately replaced.

She also said many elderly residents had contacted her concerned about not being able to go outside.

The scheme was given approval by councillors in the local authority’s full budget meeting on February 23.