This article is from page 4 of the 2008-11-04 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
A POLICY is needed for the future maintenance of the Ennis public lighting system, Town Councillor Johnny Flynn has said.
At a meeting of the town council last night, Cllr Flynn proposed that a professional consultant be employed to draw up such a policy as the con- tract between the council and the ESB is drawing to a close.
In a motion before the meeting he asked that “in the context of deregu- lation and possible departure of ESB contracts that Ennis Town Council
develop an appropriate policy to manage their street lighting asset having regard to public safety, en- ergy efficiency, value for money for maintenance, liability indemnifica- tion, design commissioning and cer- tification”.
The councillor said that the service which the town council is getting has reduced in recent years “probably because of the break up of the com- pany into constituent parts”’.
He said that street lighting is “a valuable asset” on which the coun- cil spent a third of a million Euros last year. “We have something in the
order of 3,000 street lights in En- nis and it’s important that we have a policy for managing and maintaining them,” he said.
Cllr Flynn said that in February 2007, 7 per cent of the town’s pub- lic lights were not working. “That went back to two per cent following a discussion of the matter,’ he told the meeting.
Cllr Tommy Brennan said that it would be important when the council takes over maintenance of the light- ing system that they “ensure that we are taking over lights that are in good working condition, in the same way
that we would if we were taking any- thing else in charge’.
In reply to the councillor’s motion the town engineer said that the coun- cil has engaged a company to carry out an inventory of public lighting and an asset management system. “The softwear is a specialised light- ing management package which is used by eight other local authori- one
He said the lighting inventory would be used by the local authority to tender their public lighting main- tenance when their existing ESB contact expires.