UK councils, all of them no matter their size, do not have a legal duty to provide street lighting. It follows that they also have no legal duty to provide 5G equipment to residents that is being attached to those lamp posts.
The reason councils are not legally obliged to provide street lighting is purely for financial reasons: to avoid claims of negligence or failure to provide street lighting in the event a resident injures themselves under poor lighting due to broken lamps.
“Currently, it seems to me that councils may want it both ways, i.e., no responsibility in law for failing to maintain their lighting equipment, and then the facility to rebuff any potential claims should personal injury cases arise connected to the retro-fitting of non-safety tested, potentially hazardous 5G infrastructure,” Cardin says.
Paul Cardin is a former “sparker,” radio communication operator, for the Royal Navy, former local authority street lighting designer and resident of Wirral, Merseyside, UK.