Street lamps outside John Lewis have been burning day and night for eight months in Central Milton Keynes

The city centre lights outside John Lewis, along with those on both sides of Silbury Boulevard, simply never swtich off, say the resident.

He reported them to MK Council at the start of the year but nothing has happened, he said.

Around a dozen lights on the redway between the V8 and Adelphi Street were reported at the same. These also continue to waste energy and money by burning all day.

Last week resident Phil Dunk carried out hss own calculations to estimate how much money is wasted by faulty lights that burn all day.

"A check on the internet suggests street lights cost 30p per night to run," he said. "Working on the night being eight hours, the rest of the day is costing 60p.

"The street light referred to has wasted 356 days @ 60p per day. That's £213.60 ...This should be deducted from the lighting teams salaries as a reverse bonus."

He believes there could be dozens of other lights similarly burning 24 hours a day in MK.

MK Council has more than 58,000 street lights in MK. Its highways department and its service provider Ringway provide street lighting services in accordance with national guidance and a local Code of Practice.

This Code promises to check all street lights on grid roads at monthly intervals and carry out three monthly checks on those on redways and underpasses.

It aims to provide a 24 hr service will be provided, attend to emergencies within two to 24 hrs, and repair a 'light out' within seven days of reporting, or 28 days if it is on a gird road.

The Code states: "Lights on during the day are not a safety issue. The council will prioritise these reports as a 'Planned Job' and will collate these reports then, when they have a programme, they will carry out repairs. This will typically be every two to three months. Day-burning lamps make up less than five per cent of faults repaired."

Three years ago the council announced it had reduced its carbon footprint and saved energy by changing street lights to LEDs, which are expected to last up to 22 years.

The Citizen asked MK Council when the city centre lights will be repaired.

A spokesman said: "Our budget to repair and maintain the 58,000 street lights across MK has been reduced over the years so our policy is to prioritise emergency street light repairs by doing those that are not illuminated first”.

“Lights that are on permanently (called dayburners) are still providing safe lighting during hours of darkness and as we pay a fixed price for our lighting energy it does not actually cost us any more”.

"During lockdown we focussed on lights that were out as we had limited resources and it was important for public safety to light the road network. Now we are returning to more normal working practices we will be beginning to include dayburner repairs again".