COUNTY council engineers are assessing the damage after a number of street lights were brought down along a greenway in East Lancashire.

Fed-up residents and councillors are calling for action after the structures were damaged on Padiham Greenway earlier this week.

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While the lampposts have been left at a 45-degree angle, it is understood this is because a locking mechanism near the base, used to lower the bulbs when they need to be replaced, has been tampered with, rather than them being toppled.

Town councillor Bob Clark, one of the greenway’s trustees, said: “There has been very little of this kind of thing going on so I’m surprised at this.

“We had the usual issues with dog fouling in the early days, and there has been problems, from time to time, with teenagers riding quad bikes up and down there. But nothing has happened like this.

“I’m hoping that the county council and borough council will get onto it and sort this out as quickly as possible.”

Shopkeeper Alison Barlow said: “ I walk up and down the greenway at all times of the day and evening and more often than not there are groups of teenagers drinking and smoking weed on the bench where the metal statues are.”

Borough councillor Jean Cunningham said the issue had been reported.

She said: “It has been reported to Lancashire County Council and I hope they will be replaced very soon.”

A county council spokesman said engineers were dispatched to make the columns safe as soon as the damage was reported.

He added: “Space on the greenway is restricted and these particular columns are hinged to allow them to be easily maintained, two of them had to be chopped and made safe as the hinges had been badly damaged.

“The maintenance covers had been damaged on a number of other columns and we have put steel bands around them to secure them. We will return in the coming weeks to carry out repairs and replace the columns which had to be taken down.”