Lighting fully restored to Offaly housing estate after two weeks of darkness
The public lighting was out for two weeks
PUBLIC lighting has been fully restored to The Green in Clara which was left in the dark on March 11 and remained that way for almost two weeks.
According to resident Bertie McMahon, there was no explanation as to why the lights were suddenly gone. He said it was a dangerous situation for the people there as most of them were elderly and afraid of falling.
Councillor Frank Moran said he had been contacted by local residents on Tuesday March 12 and he immediately got in touch with the roads section of Offaly County Council and logged the fault on the “Deadsureapp” (portal to inform the contractor that a light is not working).
Cllr Moran said that subsequently it was discovered there was a general fault and that was why the entire estate was out.
''It was very disappointing to see that the problem was not rectified on the weekend of the Bank Holiday,'' said Cllr Moran. He said he again brought the problem to the Director of Services, who he said in turn liaised with the contractor and the ESB.
''This concern was not just about the lights not working but the fact that there are 140 houses within the estate and a lot of elderly residents who did not feel safe,'' he stressed.
Cllr. Moran continued, “on Tuesday 19th March I again contacted our Director and the roads section to seek an update and was informed there were issues due to the fact that there were cables attached to the pole and licensing documents were required – I again reiterated the urgency to get this rectified for reasons already outlined and implored our Director to keep the pressure on the contractor and the ESB.
"On Friday evening last the Director contacted me at 5.50pm to say he was hopeful the problem would be rectified by Saturday. I then after receiving text messages from residents to say the lights were back operational that evening got a message from the Director to say the ESB had been in contact with him and the problem has been resolved.''
In conclusion, Moran stated, ''this matter was very unfortunate to continue for nearly 2 weeks and the genuine concerns of the residents and visitors was paramount to getting a solution.
"I would like to thank the Director for giving this matter the attention he did and I will discuss it further with him at our next Municipal District meeting to ensure this does not happen again in The Green or for that matter any other estate and that a contingency plan needs to be identified should this occur again in the future – The Green is where I grew up and the lights were always an integral part of the estate and I’m glad to see the problem solved,'' said Cllr Moran.