Residents in Lebanon Road have filed a formal complaint to the council, accusing it of “indifference” to their plight, after their street has been plunged into darkness, with no street lighting for nearly a week, creating obvious risks for accidents on the long winter nights, but also helping a local crime wave.
Have Croydon Council’s contractors for street lights turned their backs on Lebanon Road?
The lights went out on Lebanon Road last Tuesday. It was not until the weekend that Phil Thomas, the council cabinet member responsible for the state of our streets, promised the Addiscombe residents to look into the lighting outage. Let’s hope he has a powerful torch.
No explanation for the lighting failure, or the failure of the contractors, Skanska, to whom the council has out-sourced this service, to fix the issue has been offered.
The affected area is the section of Lebanon Road north of the junction with Cedar Road.
“This situation has been reported by various residents,” said Rod Davies, a spokesman for the residents’ association. “There is no street lighting during the hours of darkness. Neither have relevant officers attempted to keep residents informed and provide advice regarding the reason for the extended outage and when lighting will be restored.”
Davies says that residents are particularly anxious because of a spate of burglaries. There have been four burglaries in the area in four months, and a rise in minor crimes reported in the past week of darkness.
“The loss of street lighting has also increased the hazard to pedestrians, especially the elderly and small children, from fast-moving traffic that uses the northern section of Lebanon Rd as a cut through,” Davies said.
No problems with the lights at Croydon Council’s £140m HQ
Residents’ parked cars have also been damaged by some less careful drivers. In the darkness of the evening rush hour, Davies said that the traffic on the street has seen loud and angry exchanges between some drivers and occasional outbreaks of violence.
Meanwhile, the lights in Croydon Council’s £140 million glass palace headquarters continue to glow brightly each evening.
So that’s alright then.
6pm UPDATE: The lights on Lebanon Road, and other nearby Addiscombe streets including Tunstall Road, Addiscombe Court Road and Leslie Park Road, were back and working. The council website had advised that the situation would be corrected by December 31 (seriously).
The issue was a problem with the power supply, and the responsibility of UK Power Networks. To date, no explanation as to why it has taken a week to fix has been offered to residents.
Coming to Croydon
- Library’s Dr Who day: Nov 23
- Much Ado About Nothing: Nov 25
- Sex in the Cronx, Nov 26-29
- Future Tech City: Nov 30
- Follow in the footsteps of Pirie: Dec 1
- Comedy in Music show: Dec 1
- The Lives of Stanley Halls community entertainment: Dec 4
- Steve Knightly at Stanley Halls: Feb 5
- Inside Croydon: Croydon’s only independent news source, based in the heart of the borough – 262,183 page views (Jan-Jun 2013)
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