Glenhills residents in the dark over street light woes
According to the local residents, street lights on Allamanda Road, Honeysuckle Place and Elderberry Drive work intermittently.
SEVERAL sections of roads in the Glenhills area are in complete darkness at night due to street lights not working while other street lights remain on during the day. This is the complaint by residents for the past five years said Emil Swanepoel who lives on Bougainvillea Drive.
According to the local residents, street lights on Allamanda Road, Honeysuckle Place and Elderberry Drive in particular are concerning.
Most street lights are fitted with sensors and switch on automatically at night and off during the day, however, according to Swanepoel this has not been happening.
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“I’ve heard different excuses why this happens, sometimes I’m told it’s vandalism or theft but we are left in the dark as to what is the problem. For the past five years we’ve complained about the street lights working intermittently. We call the City’s call centre, get a reference number and wait for it to be resolved. To the municipality’s credit, they generally come out and fix it, but about two or three days later a section of street lights will stop working entirely. Then the lights will stay on for days in another section. This I’ve seen at the intersection of Honeysuckle and Allamanda Road. I’ve also reported street lights not working on Elderberry Drive,” he explained.
Another area of concern mentioned Swanepoel was that of security.
“It is a risk in the area as many of the roads are lined with large trees which are cut back from time to time but without street lights, some sections in the area are plunged into darkness which is a security risk. I know things do get done by the city, albeit slowly, but the effectiveness of the follow ups is what is lacking. This problem is an ongoing one and there seems to be no answer as to why after a repair, some lights work for two to three days and then don’t,” he said.
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Swanepoel emailed the city’s customer care email listing the problems with the relevant reference numbers but at the time of going to print, there was no response.
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