Cheshire East Council has apologised after an attempt to block the release of information about the cost of temporary street lighting – that doesn’t work – on Congleton Link Road.
Concerns have been raised about the lack of lighting near roundabouts on Wolstenholme Elmy Way since the road opened almost four years ago.
Now it has emerged, by way of a freedom of information request, that a “malfunctioning” mobile solar powered light tower, located on the roundabout that links with Barn Road, has cost cash-strapped Cheshire East almost £15,000 a year since it was first hired in 2022, even though it is broken.
Marty Hill, who uses the link road daily, submitted the FoI request in December as it hadn’t been working for some months, he said.
Initially, the council refused to give him information because some of it requested was “deemed commercially sensitive and exempt from disclosure”.
As a result, Mr Hill requested an internal review, telling the council: “If this information is being kept secret, it’s clearly a significant amount of money that is being wasted for the hire of a light tower that hasn’t been operational for what must be six or more months”.
Mr Hill told the “Chronicle”: “The council’s original response screamed that they were covering up how much it was actually costing, which is why I put in a formal complaint against the decision.”
Mr Hill, who lives in Macclesfield but who uses the link road daily for his journey to work, received a response from Cheshire East Council’s information rights team leader Ruth Dickinson-Higham, which included an apology.
It said: “I have conducted a thorough review of your original request and our initial response, and I apologise sincerely for the lack of information contained in our initial response.
“Some requested information was deemed commercially sensitive and exempt from disclosure. Having reviewed your request, I do not believe that the exemption was applied correctly as it was used in a ‘blanket fashion’, which is not appropriate under our transparency rules.”
The council upheld Mr Hill’s complaint.
Ms Dickinson-Higham’s response then went on to explain the situation with the light tower. Saying: “The total cost for running the light tower per annum is £14,914.29. The tower was first hired in 2022.”
The council explained to Mr Hill that while street lighting had been installed on the link road, the authority was waiting for electricity supplies to be connected before those lights could be “utilised” and that a connection date had not yet been received from the provider.
The council’s response continued: “We acknowledge the current malfunction of the tower light and are actively working to resolve the issue.”
It added: “The original design for Congleton Link Road did not include street lighting and therefore the necessary electricity supplies were not in place for lighting to be installed.”
In 2022 the “Chronicle” ran a story, which reported that safety assessments at the link road’s design stage found that lighting was unnecessary, which the council said had been backed up by several independent safety assessments.
In addition, the original plans for the roundabout included street lighting to be erected once neighbouring housing developments were built alongside additional signage at all six link road roundabouts.
The roundabouts are a cause of concern as several are not visible to drivers as they approach, especially the one at the end of Viking Way (known locally as the Tesco roundabout).
