Report a faulty street light

To report a faulty street light you'll need the following information:

• location of the faulty street light (the parish or town and road name)
• unit number (this can be found on a plastic plate attached to the column of the street light)
• details of the fault (e.g. street lamp out, flashing lamp etc.)
• your personal information (name, address, contact details)

If the street light is not shown on our reporting system, we do not maintain or repair it.  We do not hold records of who is responsible for them but the borough, district, town or parish councils  may know the owner. 

When you report a problem on the web reporting tool, it goes to our contractor who will do one of the following:

1. raise a fault if no live fault exists;
2. add the report to an existing live fault;
3. withdraw the fault if it is an issue which does not relate to a repair of a streetlight.

This means you may not see the fault you have reported on our reporting tool, but please be assured that it has gone to the contractor for assessment as described above.

Exceptions

If we find the cause of a faulty light is a problem with the electricity supply we will refer it to the electricity supplier. It will then become their responsibility to resolve the problem.

Sometimes we can't fix problems as quickly as we would like because of circumstances outside our control - examples include:

• Lights mounted on wooden poles that are within 1 metre of the live overhead supply cables where it is unsafe for us to work (known as G39 faults). To enable us to undertake repairs, we rely on UK Power Networks approved contractor to shroud the cables and then safely carry out the repairs.
• Units located on remote footpaths with no vehicular access. We need to use a specialist access platform to safely reach the lights and as we only have a limited number of these, we batch repair work of this type to achieve maximum efficiency.  
• Lights out on high-speed roads and/or where specialist traffic management is required
• An underground electrical supply fault, which is the responsibility of UK Power Networks. Faults of this nature can be found on their website.  Their aim to repair single unit failures within 25 days and multiple units within 20 days from the date when they became aware of the fault. For underground supply faults to county council owned cables, we aim to repair within 1 month.
• G39 faults - 6 months
• Footpath faults - 2 months
• High-speed roads /Traffic Management - 3 months

Reporting a non-emergency problem online is quicker and easier. It also saves money, which can be used to improve services.

But you can report a problem by email or phone using the following contact details:

• Email: customer.services@suffolk.gov.uk 
• Telephone: 0345 606 6171