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

Councillor David Walsh, leader of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, reckons that most of the 16,500 lighting columns across the borough are past their sell-by date and at least 9,000 are over their allotted 25-year lifespan.

But the cost of carrying out the repairs, which are estimated at around £13.7m, is no longer available to the council unless it uses the Private Finance Initiative (PFI).

PFI is being used more and more to fund long term project by local authorities across the country.

In Redcar and Cleveland, it has already been used successfully to develop the new council offices in Redcar and Guisborough and yesterday The Northern Echo reported how the council was also considering applying for PFI money to carry out a wish list of repairs at 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," said Coun Walsh.

"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