County leaves residents in the dark

Lots of residents have been in touch about streetlights that aren’t working across central Chelmsford. Some of these are in residential streets, including on heavily-used junctions and on routes used by families taking young children to and from schools and clubs. Others are located in our parks and haven’t worked for several years.

Cllr Marie Goldman has been trying to get Essex County Council (ECC) to fix two broken lights in Central Park for a long time. These are located by the pedestrian roundabout not far from the lake. ECC say that power has been removed from one of the lights and requires a 40m trench to be dug to replace it. The other also requires a new cable and is waiting for the “specialist cable team”. Marie says it’s unacceptable that these haven’t worked for such a long time and will keep chasing.

Meanwhile, the really good news is that after Marie highlighted the issue to them, the fabulous team at Liberal Democrat-run Chelmsford City Council have stepped in and installed brand new lights on their CCTV column in the middle of the pedestrian roundabout. It's now much brighter and safer for residents here.