'˜Repair 300 street lights and potholes'

The figures emerged after a question from UUP Knockagh Councillor Andrew Wilson, who sits on the council’s Community Planning Committee.

A Transport NI spokesperson told Mr Wilson: “Within the Mid & East Antrim area on the 10th November, 88 patching repairs were outstanding.

“The majority of these repairs will be completed within the current maintenance guidelines target dates which is based on the severity of the defect.

“There are currently 191 street lighting outages in the area.”

Cllr Wilson commented: “Transport NI needs more funding from the Executive in order to continue its work to make our community, in addition to our transport networks safe.

“Nearly 300 requests for street light and patching repairs are outstanding and this doesn’t factor in the work that is required to deal with the spraying of weeds in order to control overgrowing.

“This was a result of the fact that no weed spraying took place last year and we are paying the price with the footpath network overwhelmed by weeds in places.

“Funding also needs to be put in place to make sure that grass verges are adequately cut and left in a presentable state, when we reach the spring next year. ”

The Department for Infrastructure was contacted for comment.