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John McGran with Jessie |
Now a third dog is electrocuted
Fears raised over safety of street lamps
REPORTS of a third electrocuted dog have renewed fears over the safety of Camden’s 9,700 street lights.
Postman John McGran says his Great Dane Jessie will no longer walk on the same side of the road as the lamppost on Prince of Wales Road after twice being given a shock when she sniffed it three weeks ago.
It is less than 50 metres away from the site where German Shepherd Willow was killed and Dog the eight-stone Bull Terrier received a shock at a neighbouring lamppost, which was believed to have been left live for at least a month.
At the time, neighbours spoke of their fears a child could have been killed by the live lamppost.
It has since emerged that last year, 2,735 faults were recorded in Camden’s street lights. Details of the complaints included lights being broken or timer problems.
Mr McGran said: “She just walked over and sniffed it and as she put her nose to it she squealed and jumped back. The next night exactly the same thing happened. Now she won’t even walk down that side of the street.”
Mr McGran, who says the lamppost hasn’t been working for over a month, says he reported the fault through Camden Council’s website. The news comes days before the results of a consultation document on street lighting in Camden is due to be published.
The document sets out policy for street light repairs and sets guidelines for responding to reports of faults.
West Hampstead resident Michael Fitzgerald is also demanding an investigation into the state of Camden’s street lights after he discovered exposed wires coming from a lamppost on Fitzjohn’s Avenue, in Hampstead.
The light has since been fixed.
Mr Fitzgerald, of Westbere Road, West Hampstead, took mobile phone images of the wires but delayed reporting the electrical danger, until his memory was jogged on reading of the fates of Willow and Dog.
He said: “I was shocked to see a lamppost with the protective cover removed and the internal wires exposed. I remember talking to friends about the first dog and everyone saying it was a one in a million chance but now we have had two occurrences close together. That warrants urgent investigation.” He demanded: “It appears as though we may have a series of horribly neglected lampposts in Camden and the council must fix this issue immediately.”
A Camden Council spokesman said: “We inspect every lamppost in the borough every two weeks in the winter and every four weeks in the summer. “This exceeds the levels recommended by the Institute of Lighting Engineers code of practice. It is very rare for a door to be missing from a lamppost – this is a problem mainly caused by vandalism.
“Where we are made aware of a missing door our contractor responds straight away to fix the door if it is still there, or fit a temporary one if the door is missing.
“The lamppost on Frognal Lane had its door replaced last week as soon as the problem was noted by our contractors during their regular night time inspections.”
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