St George’s MP Kenneth Bascome has praised Belco for its swift response to his urgent call to repair scores of street lights across the parish.

Mr Bascome hit out at the electricity provider last week after counting nearly 60 street lamps in and around St George’s that had not worked for months.

His call for action prompted an immediate response from Belco, who sent crews to the East End to tackle the problem, which has affected all parts of the Island since last October’s twin hurricanes, Fay and Gonzalo.

Mr Bascome told The Royal Gazette he was very pleased with the reaction.

“I want to thank Belco for their efficient response to this problem,” Mr Bascome said. “I would say that 95 per cent of the street lights that had previously been out are now working, which is good news.

“I know that my constituents, who had complained about this issue for some time, will be very pleased.”

The former Mayor of St George’s counted 58 broken street lights during a sweep of his constituency last month.

The areas affected stretched from the Ferry Reach junction to Wellington Back Road, Park Road, Cemetery Road, Bourne Drive, Naval Tanks Road and all along Berry Road to Fort St Catherine.

A Belco spokeswoman revealed that more than 600 street lights were out on Bermuda’s main roads, and hundreds more were out on side roads across the Island as a result of October’s storms.

She added: “We are grateful to the community for reporting street lighting outages to 955 or streetlights@belco.bm and we are pleased to say that post-hurricane rehabilitation of street lights is nearly complete Island-wide.

“As you may know, Belco is responsible for maintaining the approximately 4,000 street lights that fall under the jurisdiction of Public Works across the Island, but not within the areas managed by the Corporation of Hamilton and St George’s, BLDC and Wedco, which are separate entities.”