Road chiefs reveal almost 2,000 street lights in Derry are not working

Almost 2,000 street lights are currently not working in Derry, it was revealed today.

Representatives of TransportNI, formerly known as Roads Service, told a meeting of Derry City Council that 1,900 of the 21,000 street lights are broken in the council area.

Conor Loughery, Divisional Manager of TransportNI, said the lights could not be fixed because of budget cutbacks.

Local councillors reacted angrily to the news of how many street lights were broken.

They said the situation was leaving many vulnerable people even more isolated.

Councillors agreed at the meeting of the local council's Regional Services Committee to write to the Roads Minister Danny Kennedy calling on him to make the money available to fix the lights.

A full report of today's meeting will be in Thursday's Derry News.