Pennines councillors frustrated with lack of response from E.ON

Councillors representing towns in the Pennines are the latest to be frustrated with E.ON in regards to the street lighting replacement project.

At Tuesday's (15 July) Pennine Township Committee meeting an update was given to councillors regarding the strategy and the current position of the street lighting programme.

Currently, the street lighting programme is in month 36 of 60 and has seen over 13,000 street lighting apparatus removed and replaced with new units.

But despite the ongoing work, councillors raised concerns with council officers and representatives from the Community Lighting Partnership as to their relationship with E.ON and the lack of response they get when problems occur.

Councillor Alan Brett said: “What worries me is that 90-95% of the contract has not caused any problems and most people would agree that the lighting is better but there is that 5% were there are issues and the problem is the lack of response from E.ON. They are not telling us, the customer, what is going on.”

Residents have raised issues with councillors including lights in the middle of driveways and lamp posts cutting through phone wires.

Councillor Amna Mir said: “One problem is that E.ON came along and marked where the lamp posts were going to be but then they decided to move those places. E.ON are not taking responsibly for that and the lack of response from them is frustrating for residents.”

Councillor Janet Emsley added that she was disgusted to see that “20% of complaints had not been dealt with and stated that “20% is too high”.

Steve Haddock from the Community Lighting Partnership said: “We would respond to the resident and not the councillor when a problem is raised. Occasionally a response can be sent and it is not recognised by the person it is sent to. The length of time it takes to deal with an issue will depend on the problem.”

This isn’t the first time that Councillors have raised their frustrations with the lighting scheme. In March, Middleton councillors raised issues and frustrations regarding the scheme.

Representatives from E.ON did not attend the meeting.