Mapped: Southwark's black out spots

Research from the Liberal Democrats has revealed where in Southwark you’re most likely to find a broken street light, and the shocking delays to getting them fixed.

The data shows that over the last two years, over 4,500 street lights were reported with a fault, but the number of recorded jobs to fix them only represents 54% of that number. This could mean that only half of the street lights recorded as broken are being fixed. 

Of the street lights that were fixed, on average it took almost 3 weeks from the problem being reported to the light being back on. One in three jobs took more than three weeks to resolve, and one in five took more than a month. 

Borough and Bankside topped the tables for number of both faulty street lamps, and also time taken to fix them – with one street light taking 158 days to repair.  

The Liberal Democrats, who are campaigning to make Southwark’s streets safer and cleaner, say that this shows that Southwark Labour cannot be trusted on community safety. 

Commenting, Southwark Liberal Democrat Deputy Group Leader Cllr Rachel Bentley said:  

“There are already too many places across Southwark that don’t have enough street lights, but the fact that so many lights that are there are taking so long to fix is simply not good enough. 

Everyone deserves to feel safe at night, and we know that for women especially, plentiful street lamps that are reliably working are a vital part of that.  

We’ll be bringing a motion to the next council assembly pushing hard to make Southwark’s streets safer and cleaner, with commitments to improve street lighting a crucial component of that.”