Council fixing faulty street lights

By Frank Neill

Wellington City Council has started a programme to fix faulty street lights in the wake of the heavy lights falling to the ground.

To date 17 lights have fallen, including five in the northern suburbs.

Two lights have fallen in Johnsonville, one light in Churton Park, one light in Newlands and one light in Khandallah.

The situation presented “a clear and unacceptable safety risk”, Mayor Tory Whanau said following a briefing to Wellington

City Councillors on the issue on 12 April.

Following the briefing, the council said it was prioritising fixing around 3,200 heavier lights in high wind areas within the next few months.

About 600 lights have been fixed to date, the council said.

Around 17,000 LED streetlights were installed across the city in 2018. The faulty part of the lights are the aluminium-alloy adaptors that attach the LED lamps to poles.

The adaptors are not suited to Wellington’s strong winds, causing the lamps, which weigh up to 11.2kg, to either droop or, in worst cases, detach and fall to the ground.

“I urge anyone who sees a drooping light to notify us straight away and the council will fix the light within two hours of it being reported, weather permitting,” Mayor Whanau says.

All of the adaptors will ultimately be removed. The council is aiming to complete the work within 12 months.

In February this year, the council commissioned engineering laboratory WSP to stress-test a sample of the fixtures.

The testing showed that, despite the adaptors being able to carry a static load of up to 60kg, they were unsuitable for Wellington’s windy conditions and were fatiguing over time.

The testing also strongly indicated that, contrary to earlier assessment, all adaptors have the potential to fail, although the heavier adaptors in the city’s windiest areas are most at risk.

Removal of the adaptors is a top priority, the council’s Chief Infrastructure Officer Siobhan Procter says

“We are working as hard and fast as we can to solve this issue.” Scoping of the project indicates it will cost about $6 million to complete and the council is seeking funding assistance from Waka Kotahi, Ms Procter says.

The Council intends to fund its share through borrowing.

“It’s clear our processes at the time weren’t up to scratch. We’ve now made significant improvements in this area to avoid this issue happening again. Our community expects better, and we expect better,” Ms Procter says.

Phone : 0800 85 86 87, 04 938 0721 or 027 595 4448 | Email : info@nzskylight.nz

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