Street lighting fault reporting

Report a street light fault

Report a street light fault, as well as other street lighting problems, through our online reporting tool Fixmystreet.

Report it by phone

Call 01865 519800 or 0800 317802.

To report serious or dangerous damage such as exposed live cables, outside normal office hours call 0345 310 1111 or Thames Valley Police on 101.

If you are reporting a damaged streetlight, illuminated sign or illuminated bollard which may be dangerous, especially if any wiring can be seen or exposed, you should not attempt to help by covering it up or touching the wires.

If necessary and it is safe to do so, you should warn individuals to keep away.

What you need to tell us

Most repairs are carried out in the daylight, when it is not easy to establish which light is faulty without accurate information. You can help us to repair the fault quickly by telling us:

• which road, town, or village where the faulty asset is
• the identification number of the unit, this is normally found on the street facing side of the column, approximately two to three metres up on the post. It is normally a black number on a white square
• other information to help us locate the fault, for example what number house it is outside, or some other adjacent building or landmark
• what the fault is, for example “out of light” or “day burner”

LED column replacement work

We have identified areas that have lighting columns coming to the end of their structural life. We will be using the newest technology including LED lights to replace them. The new streetlights will operate more efficiently, save energy, need less maintenance, and reduce costs in the long term.

Where required we will not only be replacing the lighting unit, but the lighting column itself. We are not planning to move any columns. To keep disruption to a minimum, we will fill excavations and remove barriers by the end of each day.

Each column replacement may take between 4 to 5 hours to remove the old and install the new lighting column, and get the electrical service reconnected.

We may need to suspend parking while work is carried out. 

More information

Faults repaired within 7 working days

Our termed contractor will aim to have faults repaired within 7 working days. However, there may be some circumstances that this time for repairs may have to be extended.

If there is an electricity supply fault this will be passed to the local electricity network operator to attend and rectify their service fault as we cannot work on their electricity network, their response will also be extended to up to 28 working days.

Our responsibility

We are responsible for:

• maintaining the county council's street lights, illuminated traffic signs and electrically powered illuminated bollards on the public highway, but we do not maintain lighting in private areas, private car parks or on new housing developments
• administering the energy contract to supply our un-metered electrical assets with electricity
• providing a lighting designs service for new street lighting installations and approving designs from developers

Maintaining and testing

We identify faults when reported by members of the public or staff, we also have night patrols checking for outages to all areas within Oxfordshire.

Electricity supply faults

Our response standards apply to all electrical faults within our control. Often the fault is a failure in the electricity supply, which is the responsibility of the energy supplier. In Oxfordshire, this is mainly Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, with National Grid covering the Banbury area and UK Power Networks covering Thame and Chinnor area.

Unfortunately, any power failure due to cable or supply fault or damage is outside the control of Oxfordshire County Council and is dealt with by the local electricity supply company, to whom this has been reported. In a domestic home or an office situation, the electricity company is bound by a charter to ensure continuity of the power supply. They are under no such obligation to local authorities for street lighting.

Our contractor is not permitted in any way to interfere with, or try to repair electricity supply faults, as they would be in breach of the statutory safety regulations if they attempted to do so. Once the electricity supply company advises us the fault has been rectified, we will confirm this within our regular inspection programme to ensure that the light is now in working order.

Damage from road traffic accidents

We attend and make safe within a 24-hour period. A column replacement, if required, will take place as soon as we are able to do so. Where possible, costs are recouped from those found to be responsible for the incident.

Hanging festive lights from columns

Permission is required from Oxfordshire County Council before hanging festive decorations from street lighting columns. OCC Electrical-Lighting team will issue a licence once all the relevant documentation and criteria has been achieved.

While festive lighting, such as Christmas decorations and hanging baskets may look attractive, it is essential that these do not put the public at risk, or obscure or damage highway lighting columns. For this reason, the columns must be structurally tested, the costs borne by the applicant.

There is a code of practice for festive lighting PLG06. Copies can be obtained directly from the Institute of Lighting Professionals.

PLG06 Guidance On Installation And Maintenance Of Seasonal Decorations (2014)

You have a legal duty that anyone hired to attach permanent or temporary decorations to a street lighting column is competent to do so and that risk assessments and method statements are in place before works commence.

It's recommended that a contractor registered under the Highways Electrical Registration Scheme (HERS) carries out the work. These contractors will have the appropriate competencies to carry out works on street lighting equipment.

You'll need to agree an unmetered load certificate with your local electricity company and then register your certificate with your chosen electricity supplier. You must make payment directly to your chosen supplier for the electricity used. Failure to do this may result in prosecution for theft of electricity by the supplier.

Any festive lighting that is erected is the responsibility of the owner, not the county council. This includes responsibility for maintenance, the cost of electricity used and public insurance liability.

Attaching anything to a lighting column

Modern lighting columns are critically designed specifically for the street light and a traffic sign plate for its structural strength. For this reason, we do not allow any unauthorised attachments, for example flags etc. to be attached to our equipment. Only attachments that are approved and necessary traffic and highway signs are allowed.

Requesting additional lighting

Unfortunately, our budget is strictly for the maintenance, emergency, and energy costs of our existing highway assets and not for the repositioning of the existing or providing any additional new lighting installations.

Checking lights that burn during daylight hours

The majority of our streetlights are controlled by photoelectric cells. If a fault occurs on a photocell, it is designed to fail in the on position, causing our streetlight to operate in the daytime. This helps us to identify that this is a fault which can be rectified.

We do not undertake complete inspections of all our equipment to detect day-burning lanterns but rely mainly on reports of these from the public.

There is no additional cost to us because of the way we pay for our electricity (unmetered supply), but it is still important that these are reported to us for repair as they do use additional energy which could be saved and help reduce our carbon footprint.

Trees or bushes obscuring a streetlight

If you have a tree, hedge or bush in your garden that is affecting the efficiency of a streetlight, please keep it trimmed. This includes bushes that surround the base of the column or illuminated signpost, as access is needed for inspections and testing for electrical safety. Please be aware that nearly all properties have a “service strip” immediately adjacent to the boundary within which most streetlights and signs are located. Including public utilities.

If we discover a problem, we will write to the resident or owner of the land from which the tree is growing asking for the tree, bush or hedge to be trimmed. If we need to cut back shrubbery that has overgrown the public highway and is affecting our streetlighting asset, signage visibility or the public utility service strip for access, we will arrange for the trimming and may consider passing the cost on to the owner.

Streetlights turning off at night

As part of our carbon action plan, we have implemented various carbon and council tax-saving measures. One of these may be to switch off street lights in residential areas from 12.30am to 5.30am, where safe to do so in accordance with our policy and with parish council approval. The parish council have to apply to have the lighting switched off. There is a cost involved with this due to the work necessary for this to happen. We also continue using dimming technology for the same reason.

Damaged street lighting columns

There is an annual column replacement programme. This is designed to identify and replace lighting columns that have come to the end of their structural life through age or condition due to corrosion. We try and do this on a whole life road basis. We have an annual programme of electrical and structural testing of approximately 2,500 columns per year which is carried out by a specialist contractor.

LED installation

It is our policy to provide new and replacement LED lanterns where appropriate to all new installations to reduce energy and carbon and use the most up-to-date technology. All manufacturers are now focusing on the development of LED products, thus making some of our older lantern parts and fittings obsolete. In instances where parts can’t be obtained, an LED equivalent will be fitted. The standard colour temperature is 3000 Kelvin for traffic routes and residential areas.

While Oxfordshire County Council generally does not support the shielding of street lighting lanterns, we do recognise that in certain circumstances it may be considered. Any shielding proposals must demonstrate that they do not adversely affect the lighting levels or uniformity on the highway, ensuring continued compliance with highway safety and visibility standards. Potentially only rear shields, if necessary, will be considered.

Managing increasing energy costs and reducing our carbon footprint

It is our policy to use the newest technology available to reduce energy consumption and maintenance visits; this is including LED lanterns on all new column replacement schemes, new housing developments and on maintenance when a new lantern is required. This also includes all new lanterns dimming to 50 per cent light output on residential roads from 10pm to 6am and 75 per cent on traffic routes from midnight to 6am.