Residents in the dark over north Durban street light outages

HUNDREDS of defective street lights across the north Durban area have, in recent months, left neighbourhoods in complete darkness at night while other roads are only lit by traffic lights. According to ward 35 councillor, Nicole Bollman, more than a 100 street lights from Durban North to uMhlanga are either not working due to technical faults or in some cases, theft.

What is more, Bollman said residents where left in the dark because there had been no word from the City on when or if the lights would be repaired.

“In some areas I’ve noted that opportunistic criminals are using the cover of darkness to commit crimes. There are several roads where large sections of the roadway are left in the dark. One of the worst affected is a stretch from the bottom of William Campbell Drive all the way to the top of Armstrong Avenue. Another residential road affected is Blue Ridge Road in Glenashley.

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“I know there is a specialised unit within the City’s structures that deals specifically with outages and faults but residents are getting no joy. In uMhlanga residents have made a list of street lights that aren’t working. Every request to the electricity department seems to go into an abyss. All we are asking for is some communication and accountability from the department. Cable theft is also a problem in some areas like Cornubia, where street light poles have actually been cut down by criminals,” she said.

uMhlanga resident, Hilton MacLarty also voiced his unhappiness over the street light situation.

“We know the City has constraints, so to aid them our community in uMhlanga does a quarterly audit of street light faults so a contractor or the electricity department can speedily, with minimal effort, fix the fault and move on. Some street lights are fixed only to trip again and in some cases I’ve been dealing with the same fault for years now. We even have two street light poles that have snapped on Ridge Road and Armstrong Avenue but no attention is received despite them being reported. We are encouraged to report outages which we do only to be met by a lack of service delivery and professionalism,” he said.

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