Almost half of Glasgow's street light poles 'at end of expected life'

More than 37,000 street light poles in Glasgow have reached the end of their expected life service – equivalent to nearly half of all lighting columns in the city.

A councillor has accused the council of ignoring the problem after it was fined £86,000 last month for a lamppost which fell on a man, causing life changing injuries.

A recent report said 7,000 columns have been replaced as part of ongoing work but a further 9,548 need to be replaced as soon as “reasonably” practicable. The council said it now has a dedicated inspection team monitoring poles and has improved its inspection approach.

But claiming there is not enough action, Councillor Stephen Docherty, Labour, said: “You would think that Glasgow City Council Neighbourhood Regeneration Services would be proactive in addressing the issue, but no. Nobody knows how long these ageing structures will last. This actually equates to over 37,000 lighting columns beyond their natural life cycle.”

He accused the SNP/Green alliance in the administration of Glasgow City Council of “not taking the health and safety of Glasgow residents seriously”.

Cllr Docherty added: “The council choosing to ignore this is very concerning.”

He pointed out the incident involving the ”failure of the lighting column in Kelvinside, which collapsed on a pedestrian to his severe injury, which led to the court case”.

A council spokesman said: “Our approach to the maintenance of the city street lighting network has been updated and improved over the past year.

“We now undertake a more thorough risk assessment of lighting columns; a new mapping system has been developed to help us manage replacement of our assets more effectively and we have also introduced a dedicated inspection team.

“The council has also allocated an additional £7.5m to allow the replacement of lighting columns across the city over the next three years.”

The council’s annual status and options report said: “Glasgow’s lighting infrastructure consists of various column types and is in poor condition with approximately 37,100 lighting columns (49%) beyond their Expected Service Life (ESL). This is a significant issue as the deteriorating condition of the infrastructure poses an increasing risk to public safety which is currently being managed with the available funding.”

Maintenance of street lights in the city is also seeing sodium lamps being replaced with LED lower energy alternatives as part of ongoing work being carried out by the council as it manages 74,490 lanterns in the city.