Along with many residents the members of the City Council have been very concerned by the outcome of the Cambridgeshire Street Lighting PFI on the quality of lighting in Ely so far.

Though the work has yet to be completed by Balfour Beatty we have developed a means of addressing the problems that we have identified to date.

Initially we will be holding a joint meeting on site with our local county councillors, district counsellors, officers from the County Council and representatives from Balfour Beatty to assess what has gone wrong with the lighting on Back Hill.

This will be done early in the New Year, and we will be pressing for the level of lighting to be rectified as a matter of urgency.

We have already started to collate the concerns of residents with other streets, particularly related to pooling of light and dark areas as a consequence of lights having been removed as part of the contract.

We have identified issues in a number of streets and roads, and we will be comparing removals against the original plans that were submitted, to ensure that Balfour Beatty have been fully compliant with their contractual obligations.

Now that lights will not be dimmed as originally anticipated, and lights will not be switched off in the small hours our next step will be to reassess the lighting throughout the City.

Where problems persist we will look at ways of mitigating them, but will also assess the future financial implications of putting things right.

We would urge anyone with worries about the lighting in their area to contact the City of Ely Council directly.