Hi, a newbie here.

I've been keeping an eye on the installation of the new lights in our road for a while now.

The new column nearest our house was installed at the beginning of May 2013. Nothing then happened until October when a hole was dug in the pavement. A week ago they returned to make the hole bigger. On Tuesday electricians connected it and today the hole was partially filled in. The barriers, completely blocking the footpath have been in place since early October and are still there as we now await the arrival of the finishers - those who will hopefully re-lay the slabs rather than bodge it with cold lay asphalt as often happens. It is possible, but not guaranteed, that we might get our pavement back about 7 months after the start of the job.

On the theme of bodge, a year or so back BT carefully laid the Broadband fibre cable in ducts beneath the pavement. That duct was smashed by the lamp post excavators revealing, but probably not breaking, the cable. Now the hole has been filled there is no chance that BT can use the draw rope (left in the duct) to pull through more services.

A bodge from start to .....finish.....but not quite, it's not even finished yet.

LBL got the cheapest price to keep our taxes down - this unfortunately is what you get.