Fagley pensioner says street lights are left on - for five months!

9:00am Thursday 6th December 2012 in News Photograph of the Author By Dolores Cowburn, Bradford Chief Reporter

Bob Smith Bob Smith

Bradford Council has come under fire after a £60,000 money saving scheme to overhaul 50 lamp-posts actually led to them being switched on continuously for five months.

One pensioner living on Flawith Drive, Fagley, said that the lights were so bright that he could read his newspaper in the dark because of the light from outside. He said that they were on all over the Fagley estate including Flinton Grove and Ferriby Close after being installed in June.

Bob Smith, 81, said that the light shined in even when his curtains and blinds were drawn and criticised the Council for wasting money on electricity bills.

Mr Smith, who has lived in Flawith Drive for 20 years, added: “They have been on day and night since the summer.

“They changed all the lamp-posts to save electricity and they have been on ever since.

“When it is dark and I pull the curtains I can still read the paper without the light on because there is a light right outside my house.

“It has affected me because I can’t sleep because the light still shines through. The Council is wasting money and I can’t understand it.”

Mr Smith’s friend, Tony Hughes, who alerted the Telegraph & Argus to the problem, said: “I think it is driving them all mad up there.”

Allun Preece, principal engineer for Bradford Council, said that the £60,000 scheme involved the replacement of 50 lighting columns. “When we replace the columns we also install energy efficient bulbs,” he said.

"The electricity connection to the control unit for the lights was finally connected on Tuesday by Yorkshire Electricity so now they are programmed to operate only whilst it is dark.

“The reason they were on all the time was because they were in ‘fail safe’ mode before the control unit was connected.

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“The control unit enables us to programme the lighting to whatever hours we need them to be on and also monitors faults. These new street lights mean we will save money in the long term.”

Eccleshill Councillor Geoff Reid (Lib Dem) said that it was “not a very good example of a way to handle money.”

Comments(13)

Idler60 says...
10:03am Thu 6 Dec 12

Councillor Geoff Reid (Lib Dem) said that it was “not a very good example of a way to handle money.”
That about sums up Bradford Council

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mad matt says...
10:10am Thu 6 Dec 12

"not a very good example of a way to handle money”

That typifies the whole attitude of Bradford Council - the problem is that it is not the council's money, it's our money, whichever way you look at it.

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Albion. says...
10:50am Thu 6 Dec 12

Why such a long gap between the work doing and the connection of the control unit?

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angry bradfordian says...
11:04am Thu 6 Dec 12

Albion. wrote:
Why such a long gap between the work doing and the connection of the control unit?
Yes, it seems that the council have brushed off the incident as Yorkshire Electricity's fault. The real question should be why the lights were installed if it was going to take 5 months before being connected.

If you were building a new house you wouldn't leave the lights on for 5 months before it's finished, but I don't suppose it's the council officer's own money that he's so glibly dismissing.

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Another Landless Peasant says...
1:41pm Thu 6 Dec 12

No doubt some of them would have gone off had I walked beneath them. A strange phenomenon that I have experienced since childhood:

http://paranormal.ab
out.com/od/telekines
ispsychokinesis/a/aa
052508.htm

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Albion. says...
1:48pm Thu 6 Dec 12

Another Landless Peasant wrote:
No doubt some of them would have gone off had I walked beneath them. A strange phenomenon that I have experienced since childhood:

http://paranormal.ab

out.com/od/telekines

ispsychokinesis/a/aa

052508.htm
Yes you certainly are off putting.

Report this post »

Another Landless Peasant says...
4:22pm Thu 6 Dec 12

It also happens the other way round, a strret light that is out as I approach it will often light up as I walk underneath.

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Another Landless Peasant says...
4:27pm Thu 6 Dec 12

"Streetlight Interference (SLI) is an alleged phenomenon in which it is claimed that certain people, passing near a streetlight at night, cause it to spontaneously extinguish (or if off, come on). Although there are hundreds of reports by both SLIders and witnesses, the subject remains controversial. Though trivial at first glance, closer study shows SLI to be a complex process, rich in paradoxes and contradictions. If true, however, the claims carry profound and exciting implications for science and for our knowledge of human potential."

http://www.forteanti
mes.com/features/art
icles/5332/sliders.h
tml

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collos25 says...
4:29pm Thu 6 Dec 12

What a load of **** the reason the lights were left on is because they were not installed correctly if they needed a controller which I doubt then a temporary time clock could have been installed for a few pounds.This reeks of total incompetence.

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Tyke69 says...
5:05pm Thu 6 Dec 12

A light on my street got damaged in October and had to be replaced. The work was done by several different teams of workers on different days, some were sub-contracted. The new replacement light has never worked and has been reported to the council twice but is still not working. If this is how the council operate all over Bradford then thousands of pounds must be wasted.

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markjoe says...
5:22pm Thu 6 Dec 12

The general couldn't case less response from the council worker sums it up perfectly. Has anybody been accountable for this, NO!. Will anybody be held accountable for this, NO!. What surprises me most about this article is that the council hasn't blamed the current government.
Recently I passed two council workers taking up some tarmac on Manningham Lane near dreams. One of them was breaking up the tarmac whilst the other took his time picking up one piece of tarmac at a time then leisurely walking to his van. There was no sense of actually trying to get the job done in a reasonable time its seemed as thought they were trying to make it last as long as they could, which sums up our council perfectly.,

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RollandSmoke says...
7:48pm Thu 6 Dec 12

Another Landless Peasant wrote:
"Streetlight Interference (SLI) is an alleged phenomenon in which it is claimed that certain people, passing near a streetlight at night, cause it to spontaneously extinguish (or if off, come on). Although there are hundreds of reports by both SLIders and witnesses, the subject remains controversial. Though trivial at first glance, closer study shows SLI to be a complex process, rich in paradoxes and contradictions. If true, however, the claims carry profound and exciting implications for science and for our knowledge of human potential."

http://www.forteanti

mes.com/features/art

icles/5332/sliders.h

tml
I too have experienced this at a rate that I can't explain as pure coincidence and have mentioned it to my daughter who has since witnessed a couple of incidents

Report this post »

dawnfrombradford says...
11:44pm Thu 6 Dec 12

personally im very happy with the new brighter lights on fagley now i can actually walk round the estate and actually able to see where im going and feel safer.

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