OUT of sheer frustration, I find myself reluctantly resorting to using the local media to coax an initial response from Wirral Council to a simple request made by myself on their website and also to the their Twitter account.

Some four weeks ago, I reported via the council website online reporting facility, two street lamps that had failed at the bottom of my road.

They haven’t been replaced yet but fair enough, these are times of austerity and every council in the country are suffering from reduced budgets and it is only two lamps.

However, these two in particular leave the bottom of our road in total darkness – perfect working conditions for the average opportunistic burglar, especially with the pitch-black cover offered by the open wooded scrubland it backs onto.

I’m not sure what it costs the council to fix two lamps, but I’m guessing that it’s a heck of a lot less than the best part of the £400,000 of our money used for two recent council executive’s “golden handshake” severance payments we have been kept in the dark about.

Or maybe this is all part of an ongoing council initiative, to keep our street lighting as murky as their monetary machinations?

In the meantime, I remain with my fellow Wirral council-tax payers, somewhat in the dark...

N Lauro, Meols.