ADDITIONAL workers have been called in to help Wirral Council deal after an increased number of faulty street lights across the borough led to target response times being missed.

The authority's highways contractor, BAM Nuttall, has brought in more electricians and introduced plans for weekend working to address the issue after council officers identified that an increased number of reports of defective lights were slowing down response times.

Wirral Council is currently in the process of writing to those who have reported a street light being out, advising them that while their report is not likely to be investigated within the five-day target, action is being taken to deal with delays.

Councillor Stuart Whittingham, cabinet member for highways and transportation, said: "We are committed to keeping all street lights in the borough operational.

"Indeed, we are currently investing in replacing our most inefficient and expensive street lights with new LED units and introducing a new central management system which will give us greater control over lights and also automatically identify faults, which means they can be repaired faster.

“We have a very successful partnership with BAM Nuttall to assist us with all aspects of highway maintenance but recently we noticed that the demand was impacting on their ability to meet response times on street lighting. We asked them to take action to address this and they are doing.

"I’d just ask people to be patient while they put in the necessary arrangements to deal with the current backlog, while still moving forward with helping us implement our new street lighting strategy.”

Defective street lights should be reported to Streetscene online via on the Wirral Council website.

If the fault is an emergency - for instance a lamppost has been hit by a vehicle, the wiring is exposed or the lantern/shade/door is hanging loose – then people should call Streetscene on 0151 606 2004 weekdays between 8am and 5pm. At other times they can call the out of hours service on 0151 647 7810.