Birmingham City Council, the largest local authority in Europe, recently paid around £2,000 to install a new lamp post. However, residents have been left dumbstruck as the post does not light up the pavement below.
Eastern Road in Sutton Coldfield has been left in darkness as the lamp post has been put up directly behind a conifer tree.
The 20ft high lamppost cannot let out any light and the council are now in talks with contractors Amey in cutting back all the foliage. It is also one in a series of 95,000 street lamps in Birmingham that are to be used as a part of its new upgrade process. The new energy efficient LED models were meant to be seen as a cost cutting method, replacing the old fluorescent lights, though it does not have seem to have worked out that way.
One local councillor said that ‘it gives the council a bad name’ and we couldn’t agree more. Wasting £2,000 of taxpayers' money is never likely to be seen as a ‘positive’ or ‘good’ move. If this is the start of upgrade process, we dread to think how the rest of it will play out.