Silverton residents and the CPF have raised the alarm about streetlights that have been out of service for more than a year.

The prolonged outage has sparked fears over public safety, especially during these winter months.

Jasmyn Avenue has become a hotspot for cable theft due to the poor lighting, leaving locals vulnerable and frustrated.

Gordon Sidney, a CPF representative, voiced serious concern, saying the lack of street lights is severely hampering community patrols and aiding criminal activity.

“The absence of streetlights makes crime more conducive, which leads to house break-ins and cable theft. It is harder now as we are in winter, and it gets too dark, so criminals can operate undetected,” said Sidney.

“The municipality is urged to fix all streetlights for the sake of the safety of the Silverton residents as a matter of urgency.”

According to resident, Marietjie Deventer, repeated reports and pleas over the past months have not yielded results.

Deventer said that no streetlights working in the area promotes crime.

“How can the municipality encourage people to protect infrastructure while all the streets are dark at night?”

Metro spokesperson Lindela Mashigo confirmed that the municipality is in the process of insourcing public lighting maintenance, but admitted that internal resources are still below the required levels.

“The resources available internally are not at the desired level yet,” said Mashigo.

“In President, Blom, Joseph Bosman and Van Wyk streets, lights have been attended to.”

Mashigo explained that maintenance has been focused on arterial roads due to limited internal capacity.

“Streets within residential areas will only receive attention once internal resources are adequately scaled up,” he said.

Mashigo said the city has submitted a request for additional visible policing from the Tshwane Metro Police Department in high-risk areas to help safeguard the community and protect critical infrastructure while repairs remain pending.

“The city does perform scouting and repairs of public lighting on arterial roads. The scouting will be increased to cover the internal routes, as and when the internal resources reach the desired levels,” he added.

On the issue of Jasmyn Avenue, which residents describe as one of the darkest and most unsafe streets in Silverton, Mashigo said a specific timeline for the repairs could not be provided.

“It is difficult to provide a precise time frame for this listed street. The city will continue attending to streetlights on the arterial roads until such time that the internal capacity is sufficient to attend to the public lighting in all the areas being serviced by the city proportionally,” said Mashigo.

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