Neighbours scared to leave their homes after lights out

The lights went out in Haddington several weeks before Christmas and ScottishPower is still trying to find the source of the problem.

While the problem is investigated, residents say they are at the end of their tether after weeks without lights.

Retired home help Pamela Gunn, 62, is disabled, and said the darkness made her frightened to leave the house in the evenings.

Mrs Gunn, who lives in Baird Terrace, has mobility problems, a heart condition and diabetes.

She said: "It's nearly the whole of the west side of Haddington. It's been on for one night and that's it. They went off before Christmas. I went to the council, they said it's not their fault, it's the electricity board. I've phoned them and they say it's the council.

"It was on for an hour last night. It went on at five and off and six. I'm just terrified. Sometimes it comes on at two in the afternoon. One of my friends took their dog for a walk and walked into another man because it was so dark. It's all disabled people and pensioners around here, and it's so dangerous. It makes it eerie, you're frightened to go out, it's so dark."

Home care assistant Diana McLuckie, 44, lives in Hope Park Crescent. She said: "It's really bad. At the end of the day, it's not just something that's been a week or two, it's several weeks. We live in an old person's street. There are two or three of us have got outside lights on to try and help, but it's hell, it's just hell."

Mrs McLuckie said that even before snow and ice arrived, Haddington residents had become accustomed to stumbling in the street: "There are five people that I know that have fallen because you can't see," she said.

A spokeswoman for ScottishPower said its workers had been replacing fuses in the lights, but they repeatedly failed, and staff were still trying to find out exactly where the problem was located.

She said: "We are aware that they have a problem but we're looking into it. It looks as though they've got an intermittent cable fault and we're doing various tests on each stretch of the cable to find out which part is faulty – we don't want to start digging up the wrong part of the road. We do apologise for the inconvenience."

An East Lothian Council spokeswoman said the fault was the responsibility of Scottish-Power. She added: "Fuses were burning out and when ScottishPower were sending in engineers what they would see was a burned out fuse and they would replace it, but it's a bigger problem than that.

"We've written a fairly extensive report to ScottishPower hoping that they will now understand the complexity of it. They are taking it seriously but haven't been able to find where the fault is. We're aware that these streets are predominantly residential so there is a health and safety concern so we've been putting a wee bit of pressure on ScottishPower."