 At the beginning of December I received an email informing me of the process for requested additional street lighting and their prioritisation with regards to crime and anti-social behaviour.
Shown on the pages are details of the Council’s perception of where the locations are and that these requests were made by myself on the 18th June 2009.
The council’s analysis and response indicated that an anti-social behaviour case in Ridgeway was opened in relation to damage to a fence which bordered the school and that this case/request had now been closed and that of the other requests, analysis of data suggested that the initial reported problems were not significant enough to justify improvements in street lighting and that these cases/requests were also closed.
As I read through this analysis it was obvious to me that council officers had not recorded the correct information. The additional lighting for Ridgeway was not in relation to damage to a fence and was actually requested on 24th April 2009, the request for additional lighting at the rear of Longfield Road was made on 11 March 2009 and the request for additional lighting in the rear lane between Vernon and Myrtle Gardens was made on the 27th November 2007.
At this point I thought it best to arrange a meeting on 22nd of December 2009 with the Anti Social Behaviour Manager and the Street Lighting Engineer in all three locations. The Ridgeway location was not where officers thought it was and they were also uncertain if the garage area was adopted highway, but have since then said that it is. The garage area has no lighting, at night it is very dark and it was suggested that some form of dusk to dawn lighting could be fitted to the garages themselves.
The budget for the provision of any additional street lighting is governed by the number, type of crime and anti-social behaviour issues reported to the police. Thirteen incidents were reported to the police in Longfield Road between June and October 2009 and seven were reported in the Vernon and Myrtle Gardens area in the same period.
I have requested that all three of these requests for additional lighting remain open. If you would like to see additional lighting installed within these areas it is very important that all residents report all incidences of crime and anti-social behaviour issues to the police and that they receive an incident report number too.
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