COMMUNITY councillors in Helensburgh want to build up a picture of the scale of street lighting faults across the Helensburgh and Lomond area.

They are to ask other community councils for information on the scale of the problem before taking a dossier to Argyll and Bute Council in the hope of further action being taken.

Members of Helensburgh Community Council (HCC) considered a report on the issue – one of the perennial bugbears of communities across Argyll and Bute – at their monthly meeting last week.

According to the report, most complaints are either about lights being dark, either singly or in groups; collapsed poles; and areas which are now dark as a result of older sodium lights being replaced with LED ones.

The report stated: “Where it is a single light out and the problem is at the light source itself, action following a report of a defect, on the whole, has tended to be fairly prompt.

“Where there is a group of lights out, this too can be fairly quickly dealt with if it is due to a defect in the timing mechanism in the control pillar.

Occasionally the defect remains un-repaired for a lengthy time. In these cases, it is said, that it is due to a defect at the base of the pole or in the adjacent public electricity supply which has to be dealt with by Scottish Power, the authority operating the network in this area.

“It is clear that to understand the situation properly the co-operation of Argyll and Bute Council is needed in most of the scenarios noted.

“However, before doing this it might be as well to try to establish what the situation is in other areas so we know whether it is a widespread issue or rather more local.”

A council spokeswoman said: “Faulty lighting can be reported using an online form on the council website (www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/road-faults), or by calling our contact centre on 01546 605514.

“For emergencies out of office hours, residents can call RALF (roads and lighting faults) on 0800 37 36 35.

“If a fault reported to us, we will make arrangements to have it fixed, or pass it to the responsible organisation. For example, there may be cabling faults that require input from the electricity supply company.”