A man from Buckinghamshire was left fearing for the safety of his family after his pleas for the council to fix a broken streetlight outside his home went unheard for 18 months.
Mark Chapman, 48, initially reported a broken streetlight outside his home on Booker Lane in High Wycombe to Buckinghamshire Council after it was hit by a car in May 2022.
A contractor stopped by on the day of the incident to cut the streetlight in half for safety reasons but when Mark enquired about further repairs three weeks later, he found that the case had been closed by the council.
After months of assurances that the issue would be "jumped on right away", and "get sorted before Christmas", the 48-year-old came to the end of his tether in April 2023 and decided to take his case to the Jonathan Vernon Smith Show on BBC Three Counties Radio, a phone-in programme that had previously helped him with a family issue.
The impact of the increased publicity and resultant pressure finally saw the completion of the streetlight repair works in November, marking 18 months since the damage had been inflicted.
Mark described the delay of the remedial works as "unacceptable", adding: "There is a lot of speeding where I live and I've had people crash into my front gate before - I've petitioned for traffic calming measures, but none have been put in place.
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"My elderly mother often visits me and she sometimes has to park up the road because there's no space. If she's visiting in the evening and there's no streetlight there, it's a real risk. I don't want something to happen to her.
"I have two children as well, one of whom is a toddler. 18 months is just too long to wait."
Steven Broadbent, Cabinet Member for Transport at Buckinghamshire Council said: "We sincerely apologise for the delay in repairing this broken streetlight and appreciate that it has taken longer than expected to fix.
"The reason behind the delay was primarily due to the availability of parts which was unfortunately beyond our control.
"Since April, our streetlight repair teams have fixed more than 2,800 broken or damaged streetlights across the county and continue to address reported issues alongside our programme of upgrading all streetlights to more energy-efficient LED bulbs."
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