Repairs being carried out on Shawbury's street lights following review

Shawbury Parish Council has ordered a review into the village's lights, and now work on repairing them is is expected to take place this month.

At a recent parish council meeting a sum of £5,000 was allocated by councillors to allow the work to be carried out.

A statement on behalf of the council says: "The council recently requested our contractors to carry out a detailed safety review of all the street lights owned by the council.

"It is four years since the previous full scale review and a range of issues have been identified, including the need to replace some of the old concrete columns which have become unsafe.

"The council has accepted the report and contacted E.ON to carry out the work, some of it with the support of Scottish Power.

"E.ON is planning to carry out the work during October but are unable to give an exact date. The work is essential and we apologise in advance for any disruption and inconvenience caused and we have been assured that this will be kept to a minimum."

Meanwhile, the council has also recently installed a replacement CCTV camera on the street light in the council car park.

At the start of the year it emerged the village had been hit by a series of vandalism and arson attacks.

The council said the attacks happened in places such as the village play area and picnic area over the previous few months.

The parish council statement adds: "The purpose of the CCTV surveillance and record system is to monitor activity in and around the council car park.

"The camera is an updated model with infra-red capability to view and record during the hours of darkness.

"It has a much better range of coverage over the car parks, the village hall and the recreation ground. Councillors Paul Sharp and Anthony Foster have accepted responsibility for monitoring the camera’s recordings.

"The system has a 'record and replay' capability recorded data is stored for approximately 30 days and may be digitally exported if required.

"Any recorded data showing acts of suspected criminal activity, vandalism, anti-social behaviour or other unacceptable activities may be exported to removable media and handed to the appropriate authorities for further action.

"Please report any suspicious activity to the parish clerk who will arrange for the recordings from the camera to be reviewed and relevant details to then be forwarded to the police for possible action."