Corfu street lighting: Total darkness!
CORFU. Municipal and Regional Authorities and the electricity company (DEDDIE) are involved in a complicated system of responsibilities, funding and contract works.
Residents are continuously complaining about street lighting. Some areas are like ‘Hades’, whilst in others the lighting comes on in broad daylight. This is just a sample of the areas that Enimerosi has received complaints about lighting from: Agia Sophia, Laiki Agora (Open-air Market), the Jewish Quarter, Old Corfu, Mantouki, Alikes, Agrafi, Tsaki in Benitses and several areas in Lefkimmi.
The conundrum is – who is responsible for what, what funding is available and how is it all coordinated in Greece?
What the municipality has to say
The manager of the Municipality Technical Services office, Mr. Charitos, told us that street lighting is the municipality’s responsibility and for any problems residents can call 26610 37482 and a repair crew will immediately deal with it. Residents, however, complain that their calls are always kept on hold.
What the Regional Authority has to say
According to reports, areas such as Tsoki in Benitses have not had street lighting for over a month. The Technical Services manager, Ms Papasozomenou, told us that the Service’s priority is to locate the problem and look into it. For example - why is there no street lighting in such a large area? One possible reason is damage to the supply network. Another is that lamps have burnt out. There is also the case, however, as in south Corfu, where hunters deliberately shoot the lights, so that they can hunt better at nighttime, as has been reported to her by residents in the area.
“Contracts always begin in January – there are three of them, for north, central and south Corfu – and they deal with road safety (road markings, laying asphalt, maintenance and repairs to the road surface etc.), but not street lighting, since not everything can be included in a contract”, said Ms Papasozomenou. “The contract for street lighting maintenance and repair is awaiting approval from the financial committee. There are some necessary procedures that need to be carried out, such as inviting tenders for the work etc. At best, the street lighting contract work will be completed by the end of February - if not, then within the next three months.
However, if there is a serious problem, residents can contact the Ionian Islands Regional Technical Services Office and we will deal with issues on a case by case basis,” she added.
What DEDDIE (Electricity Company) has to say
The Secretary of the DEDDIE Employees Union, Nikos Savvanis, told us that when there is extensive damage, the Municipality calls for a DEDDIE crew. A simple lightbulb replacement, however, is the responsibility of the Municipality.
Most of the street lighting problems that are the responsibility of DEDDIE have been fixed, Mr. Savvanis went on to say and mentioned some areas such as Ano Garounas, Danila, Kyprianades etc. “Due to the fact that we only have a few repair workers, we always give priority to household problems,” he added. “The public can contact us about problems at 26610 39819 or 1050.”
Electrical timers
Members of the public at Liston told us on Tuesday 6th that the lamps in the seating areas in Spianada Square were lit until 10am.
In response to the question as to why in some places lights are on during the daytime, Nikos Savvanis said that the mechanisms that switch the lights on and off are automatic and their hours of operation are predetermined. However, the timers sometimes malfunction. “In that case we manually switch the lights off and a specialized crew from Patras comes to repair the damage and carry out maintenance work at the specific substation which had the problem”.
