Essential Energy in the dark on defective lights

Several councillors including councillor Jason Hamling have been critical of the number of street lights out in Orange and the time it takes for the electricity company to replace them.

“My main concern is security and safety,” Cr Hamling said.

“If you’ve got proper street lighting it’s a deterrent.”

Cr Hamling said he had noticed many lights out in the Calare area and other areas around town.

“You don’t see Essential Energy driving around [checking the lights],” he said.

“They’re in charge why should it be up to council to tell them?”

General manager Garry Styles told a recent council meeting Essential Energy regional manager Phillip Green had promised the company would do better with street lighting, when he met with council staff, focusing on the central business district.

“We pay for the street lights so we put it on them to live up to their service obligation to us,” he said.

Mr Green said the company’s crew endeavoured to fix a faulty street light within seven days after it is reported.

“While our crews carry out regular maintenance and inspections of all network assets including street lights, we also rely on the community to let us know when a street light is not working,” he said.

Council spokesman Nick Redmond said council had discussed ways broken street lights could be reported better, but seven days was a reasonable amount of time to expect lights to be fixed.

“They’re not going to have a person in every street every day looking at the lighting,” he said.

“Both council and Essential Energy rely on people to tell us if there is a problem.”

Mr Green said the company was responsible for maintaining more than 1000 street lights in the Orange City Council area and close to 145,000 street lights across regional NSW.

Residents can report broken street lights by calling Essential Energy on 13 20 80 or by visiting essentialenergy.com.au/streetlight.

clare.colley@fairfaxmedia.com.au