SEAFRONT lighting looks set to be improved in Lowestoft, with £250,000 of emergency replacement works being planned.Waveney District Council is aiming to illuminate the town's Esplanade after a survey revealed that the lighting columns are in a very poor condition, unsafe and are a potential danger to people.

SEAFRONT lighting looks set to be improved in Lowestoft, with £250,000 of emergency replacement works being planned.

Waveney District Council is aiming to illuminate the town's Esplanade after a survey revealed that the lighting columns are in a very poor condition, unsafe and are a potential danger to people.

A report to the authority's cabinet, which was due to meet last night, is recommending approval of the money which will come from the capital programme to ensure the work and replacement of the lighting columns is carried out.

Stretching from Claremont Pier to the Pakefield laboratories of the Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), the seafront lighting columns on the Esplanade are reported to be in poor condition, with many being classed as “severely corroded, rendering them as unsafe and a potential danger to pedestrians.”

The proposed works would be carried out in a high-profile conservation and tourist area, and it is recommended that they be carried out in two phases.

The first phase of the scheme - costing around £15,000 - is seen as an interim measure to remove the current red coloured and poorest of the amber lighting columns and replace them with low-cost temporary columns, while the less dangerous ones will have lanterns removed.

The second phase would be to replace the columns to the same design as those between the South Pier and Claremont Pier, and costing £235,000. The aim would be to reinstate the promenade to its current condition.