STREET LIGHTING WAS turned off at Chambers Park in Kilcock last Thursday – but residents say they weren’t informed until after the switch was flicked.

Yesterday evening, Kildare County Council said that due to health and safety fears it was making arrangements with the utility company to restore the public lighting, but Pat McGarry, chair of the residents committee, said this wasn’t the end of the story.

“It’s good news,” he said. “But it’s a pity that it took this drastic step [of going to the media] to get action from Kildare County Council.”

He said that “the situation hasn’t been resolved” and that the council stepping in is “an interim measure”.

“We want the estate finished. We want the estate taken in charge,” he said. “It can only be done by KCC  or have it moved to category four [unfinished housing estate] so they can apply for funding from the Government to have it finished.”

McGarry said his fear would be that other unfinished estates, where the developers have gone into liquidation and the street lighting bills are not being paid, could see their public lighting switched off.

Billing questions

Electric Ireland said that it wrote to the council and residents association requesting that one of them take over responsibility for paying future electricity bills, after Kildare County Council said that the council was not taking responsibility for the payment of the bills.

When Electric Ireland did not receive written confirmation about the transfer of the account for future billing, ESB Networks disconnected the electricity supply.

It will put arrangements in place to reconnect the supply when it has been agreed who will take over the account for future billing.

Sewage system

The power was turned off to the sewage pumping station, which pumps sewage for 40 homes in the park.

The developers of Chambers Park were in receivership for four years before going into liquidation in January 2013, said McGarry.

Chambers Park is a private estate, but there are some local authority apartments there.

Read: ‘People walk around with torches’: Street lighting turned off in unfinished estate>