Cootamundra is in the dark as to who is responsible for our main street lights.
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Cootamundra-Gundagai Regional Council has stated on a number of occasions that the company from which it buys electricity - Essential Energy - is paid an annual fee to maintain the town's lights.
But Essential Energy said this week it was not responsible for the heritage-style lanterns in the main street, or the "white way" lamps under shop awnings, or the wattle signs.
In a statement it said the decorative lights and the 'white way' lights belong to council, and are therefore its responsibility to maintain.
It apologised to residents who may have been affected by a problem with some street lamps elsewhere in the town suspected as faulty.
However Essential Energy said it was now using new lamps from a different supplier, and was replacing street lights as "a matter of priiority".
A local ratepayer who has taken up the issue, Betty Brown, has counted 58 street and footpath lights inoperative in the CBD, and knows of one street light, at the corner of Temora and Hay, that took four months to repair.
Mrs Brown, who raised the issue of non-functioning lights at the council's open forum in April, believes it's "crazy" that so many lights are out, and that it's taking so long for them to be fixed.
She told the open forum that she had informed council five weeks earlier about five heritage lanterns that were out in the main street, but nothing had happened.
This week she said three of them have since been fixed but two are still out, around the corner from the Post Office in Cooper Street.
As well, two of the four lamps above the Adam Street roundabout are still out.
"And that's just counting the decorative lanterns," she said.
Cootamundra's wattle signs, too, are in the dark with floodlights no longer illuminating signs outside Woollies car park and Wrapped - and one of the signs has been removed altogether and is now languishing in the grass near the tip.
Mrs Brown said she mentioned to a councillor that none of the fluorescent tubes outside the Cootamundra Hotel were working, and he said it was the responsibility of the hotel owner.
"But I've checked and it's actually white way lighting for people walking up the street in the dark, so those tubes are really council's responsibility," she said. "The same goes for those outside the Globe Hotel.
"On Monday night I counted all the lights out in the main street including those under the awnings that are supposed to create the white way, and there are 58 of those out.
"Some streetlights elsewhere have been fixed, like the corner of Temora and Hay - but that took four months - and the light at the corner of Cowcumbla and Centenary is still flickering."
STOP PRESS: ANSWER ON HOW LONG IT SHOULD TAKE
After the above story on street lighting was completed, Essential Energy replied to a late question about the time it should take for lights to be fixed.
Shawn Eade, operations manager for Riverina Slopes, said that under the new NSW public lighting code, the standard repair time for a customer-reported streetlight fault is 10 business days.
"However more time is allowable for complex repairs, such as cables or repairs needing long-lead-time materials or on major roads where a road occupancy licence is needed."