A MULTI-million pound private finance deal could soon be launched to stop the lights going out in Redcar and Cleveland's streets.

Most of the 16,500 lighting columns across the borough have passed their sell-by-date and at least 9,000 are over their allotted 25-year lifespan, according to borough council leader Councillor David Walsh.

But the cost of carrying out the repairs, estimated at about £13.7m, is no longer available to the authority unless they use the Private Finance Initiative (PFI).

PFI involves local authorities and the private sector forming partnerships to secure funding and share the costs of long-term projects.

In Redcar and Cleveland, PFI has already been used successfully to develop the council offices in Redcar and Guisborough and yesterday, The Northern Echo reported that the council is also considering applying for PFI money to carry out repairs to schools throughout the borough.

Coun Walsh said he hoped the bid for the money would also take in aspects of what he described as "street furniture" - signs, fences, bollards and bus shelters - as another way of cleaning up the streets, making neighbourhoods safer and reducing crime.

"It is about trying to reclaim our towns and estates for the people who live there by trying to make the borough look cleaner and more pleasant and good street design helps," he said.

A good example, he said, was Eston, where the council carried out a project to remodel the town square, put in new lighting, put up bus shelters and carried out a major clean-up.

"What we are now doing is constructing a bid which will tie in the expertise of our own workforce, who maintain and operate our street lighting, with the procurement ability of companies who can manufacture or sell street lighting," he said.

However, he added that getting PFI money was a detailed, lengthy and complicated process that also needed Government approval, and he hoped reports on the viability of the scheme would be available for the council executive in the next couple of months.