Some residents who have read a report to be put before Katherine Town Council tomorrow night fear it may have bought a lemon, in this case, a defective lighting network.

In investigating why “there currently exists many reports of street lights being inoperable” council has discovered an apparent flaw in the deal it did back in 2017 to take over the operation of the street lights from the Power and Water Corporation.

Much hoopla followed the signing of the deal in February 2017 and the subsequent upgrade of the 850 lights in town with LED fixtures, reportedly 10 times as bright as the old.

Katherine Times understands the handover of the lights and the LED upgrade was paid for by the NT Government, but after that the council assumed responsibility for their repair.

The Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Logistics is responsible for the LED light upgrades in Katherine Terrace, because of its highway location.

Back in 2017, council officers believed the new lights were more durable and longer lasting.

The ultra-bright lights were seen back then as a partial solution to rising complaints of petty thieving and vandalism in residential areas, plaguing homeowners at night.

According to a presentation to be made to council tomorrow night, that deal is no longer looking as bright.

Many of the problems with the broken lights have been traced to the wires between the power lines and the fuse on each pole.

There is now a dispute between council and Power and Water on who is responsible for fixing this latest fault.

Power and Water’s opinion is that council has to fix it.

Unfortunately for the council, its contractor says because of the “age and poor condition of these sections of cable, more failures are likely to occur, particularly during the wet season”.

Council’s contractor Power Projects NT has been directed to fix the faulty wires on broken lights at Harrod Street/Riverbank Drive/Campbell Terrace/Shaw St/Tindal Street and then report back the costs for the repair.

Then council can multiply the amount for the 800 or more lights which remain unfixed and discover what the final bill will be to do necessary preventative maintenance on them all.

“Budget impact – unknown at this stage,” the report says.

“The problem seems to exist with the pre-existing cable (gifted asset) that connects between the powerline and the fuse. In the diagrams provided by PWC it is not clear who is responsible for this section of cable,” the council report says.

“Council staff and our maintenance contractor believed that this section of cable was PWC's responsibility. However, it is only in the last two weeks that PWC have advised us that this, in their opinion, is actually a council responsibility.”

At the time of the town’s new LED upgrade, council was told they would also slash yearly bills by half, from $140,000 to $70,000.

At the time of the upgrade, council also installed a Smart Lighting system to control it and reduce maintenance costs.

Katherine council has not had much luck with lights in recent years.

Some of the new light towers bought in February 2017 for the sportgrounds with $450,000 provided by the NT Government apparently broke during delivery and were subject to an insurance wrangle.

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