Minister explains street light budget crisis

Meadowvale Park residents Lawrence Smyth, Isobel Doyle and Andy Ferris who are unable to get the street light fixed outside their Limavady homes due to cut backs in the budget for roads maintenance. INLV3514-661KDR

Last week, the Sentinel revealed how Limavady residents were left distressed after a request for a street light repair near their homes was turned down due to budget cuts.

Now, the Minister responsible - the UUP’s Danny Kennedy - has underlined the significance of the budget problems leading to the bizarre situation where the government are saying they can’t afford to replace a light bulb.

Asked at Stormont earlier this week by Sinn Féin MLA Sean Lynch “to outline any potential alternatives to the proposed cuts in road maintenance and street lighting”, Mr Kennedy replied: “Following the recent announcement on June monitoring, my Department’s resource budget, which is used for the day-to-day maintenance of the road network, has been cut.

“In order to protect areas such as winter maintenance, which costs, on average, approximately £7 million each year and is vital to the economy of Northern Ireland, traffic-light maintenance, which costs, on average, approximately £4 million each year, and contractual commitments for energy, I had no option other than to take some tough decisions and stop issuing new work instructions to external contractors.

“Those contractors undertake, as I said, around one quarter of our routine maintenance work and three quarters of the work associated with the repair of street-lighting faults.

“I restate that my Department’s operations and maintenance staff will endeavour to keep the road network in as safe a condition as possible, but they only have the resources to complete around three quarters of the total workload. Therefore, they will not be able to provide the service that the public would expect in normal circumstances.

“Those are difficult decisions, but they are necessary to try to protect areas such as winter service, where withdrawal of our work could have an even greater impact on the Northern Ireland economy and public. I realise that these measures will impact on contractors, road users and the public, but I have, as I said, been forced to set priorities so that we can operate within the reduced budget.”

Mr Lynch also asked: “The Minister has, to some extent, outlined some of the amounts involved. Can he provide a timeline for when those cuts will be implemented?”

The Minister’s response was emphatic: “Let me be clear: these cutbacks are immediate.”