City street repairs hit by impasse

He warned that this has the potential to result in many street lights being out across Northern Ireland over the winter period.

Mr Kennedy made the comments after the DUP in Londonderry met with Roads Service locally to discuss ongoing issues of concern and plans for future works and maintenance within the Londonderry and Strabane areas.

The DUP said the lack of agreement on welfare reform had resulted in “very bleak” prospects for the winter.

In a statement the party said: “DRD have confirmed that street lighting tests will continue for safety reasons but street lights will no longer be repaired or replaced.

“In the case of roads and footpaths, repairs relating to health and safety will continue but it is noted that there must be at least a 20mm trip hazard before repairs or replacements of footpaths will be carried out and then on a priority basis.

“Gullies which would have been cleaned twice a year will now only be cleaned once annually. Only small road repairs will be carried out and it is obvious that in some cases this will be a patching up job which will not last over a heavy winter.”

On a brighter note the party confirmed that large scale works will still be on schedule for the foreseeable future and winter gritting will not be affected.

But Mr Kennedy responded: “I don’t hold the Executive’s purse strings, the DUP and Sinn Féin do. The fact is that following the recent announcement on June monitoring my Department is facing a significant budget shortfall.”

He went on to state: “We will continue to deliver a significant programme of road resurfacing, footway resurfacing, drainage and surface dressing work funded from the Department’s capital budget amounting to almost £3.2m.

“Staff will also endeavour to prioritise gully cleaning and deal with known flooding area problems. We will seek to prioritise those areas to ensure that they are protected as far as we can.

“In addition, we will endeavour to deal with street light group faults and single outages on a priority basis. Regrettably, this has the potential to result in many street lights being out across Northern Ireland over the winter period.”