Let there be light

Street lights on a busy thoroughfare have not been illuminated in seven years because they are believed not to be connected to the mains.

The lights are in an alley that connects Newark’s Asda store to Beaumond Cross.
Lombard Medical Centre borders part of the alley, and the chairman of the centre’s Patients’ Participation Group says the area would be safer if it was lit.

Mr David Green said: “It is a quiet area and I have been told that it is a place where people have been known to sell and take drugs.

“I have heard that some of the staff had been accosted as they are coming into work and that shouldn’t be right.”

The area forms part of the former Potterdyke carpark site that was redeveloped after

Newark and Sherwood District Council approved plans for an Asda store, shops and the medical centre.

A council spokesman admitted that it required details of the scheme’s CCTV, lighting and street furniture to be submitted and approved, before the development could proceed.

The scheme was agreed and the lighting columns were added, but they have never been switched on.

Mr Green said the lights were pointless.

“I was told by the district council there was an expectation they would be connected to the electricity,” Mr Green said.

“There are five street lights there and it has been a mission trying to find out how to switch them on, because no one has seen them on in seven years.

“Those lights must have cost a lot of money to put in, but if they are not connected to electricity then what is the point of them?”

Mr Green wants to shed light on the situation before winter.

“All I want to do is get that walkway lit up on dark mornings and dark evenings so staff and patients for Lombard Medical Centre don’t feel intimidated,” he said.

Mr Green believes the lights will become even more important now plans have been submitted to the council for a 66-bed Travelodge to be incorporated into the listed facade of the former Robin Hood Hotel on Beaumond Cross.

Of the situation, the council said: “This relates to private land and we do not have the power to enforce anyone to connect a power supply or ensure lighting is switched on at such a site.

“We will further look into this situation.”

It has been suggested that the lights are on land owned by Asda.

A spokesman for the company said the matter was being looked into.