Cork city public lights will take 20 years to repair at a cost of €10,000 apiece

Only 500 public lighting poles in Cork city have been replaced, at a cost of €10,000 each, and the city council has said that at the current rate, it will take more than 20 years to replace 11,500.

Labour councillor Peter Horgan asked, at a recent council meeting, how many public lighting poles across the city needed to be repaired, the overall cost of such repairs, and how long it would take.

John Stapleton, the council’s director of local area development and operations, said: “The 2021 Public Lighting Strategy for Cork city identified the need to replace a total of 11,500 public lighting columns, due to structural deterioration, electrical cable non-compliance, etc.”

Just 4% of these have been replaced.

Mr Stapleton said that Phase 1 requires Cork City Council to replace 1,000 of the highest-risk columns.

To date, 479 columns have been fully replaced and energised, and 179 columns are scheduled for civil works completion in Q2 2026.

The remaining 342 columns will be progressed when funding is available, he said.

In parallel, work has also begun on Phase 2, which focuses on the 5,000 worst-affected columns citywide.

Average cost 

To date, the average cost per column replacement is €10,000, which includes column replacement, replacement of associated cabling, ducting, and reinstatement works.

This means that €4.8m has been spent on replacing poles so far, but €115m will need to be spent to replace all poles identified in the 2021 council strategy.

Based on delivery, the indicative programme for each estate is four to six weeks per estate for civil and electrical works, but ESB energisation and de-energisation works are “currently subject to a nine-month lead time, following completion of civil and electrical works”.

Mr Stapleton added that the decommissioning and removal of old columns occur after ESB works are finalised.

“These programme durations reflect the significant national pressures on ESB Networks scheduling, combined with the scale and complexity of citywide public lighting upgrades.”

Mr Horgan asked at the meeting when the council expects all the poles to be fixed, and Mr Stapleton said: “Each light is coming in at around €10,000. It’s not just the light head, it’s the digging up of the road, ducting, cabling, reinstating footpaths after.

“There isn’t a straight answer, because it is subject to the available funding. At the current rate, it’s going to take more than 20 years to replace them all.

“If we can source additional funding, and we certainly will be trying to do that, that programme will accelerate.”

Public safety

Mr Horgan told The Echo: “It is a matter of public safety that we have the public lighting across our city up to scratch. To hear that it could take over two decades to repair all the lighting columns is dispiriting, but it appears that if we can unlock significant funding, it will speed up the process.

“Ring-fencing a national lighting fund for Cork city must now be the work we look towards, and it is something I will engage on with my colleagues in the Oireachtas.”