Delays in repairing faulty and damaged street lights in West Sussex have been slammed by a prominent councillor.

Dr James Walsh spoke out at a West Sussex County Council meeting after it took five months to repair a concrete lighting column which crashed to the ground in Ash Lane, Rustington, near Littlehampton.

The delay was blamed on power supply companies by a council Cabinet member but Coun Walsh, a member of the county's Lib Dem group, says the Tory-run council is falling down over a basic service to the public.

Coun Walsh asked a meeting at Chichester when residents could expect a return to "decent maintenance contracts and performance delivery?"

Later he said: "I was far from satisfied with the answers because it took five months to repair this column which came down in January.

"There are similar problems all over West Sussex with it taking weeks or months to repair street lights and the county council should look at renegotiating its lighting contract."

Cabinet member for the environment Councillor Tex Pemberton, who is in charge of highways issues, said talks were taking place with the lighting company hired by the council to draw up a reliable estimate of the backlog of major repairs.

He said: "Residents are experiencing a good service in that more than 98 per cent of lights are working at any one point against our contract standard of 97.5 per cent which was our first priority.

"We are now dealing with the second priority which is to ensure that minor repairs such as faulty lantern covers and major ones involving wholesale replacement of a column are dealt with in a timely manner.

"Major repairs can take up to six months and this is in part due to the slow response by power supply companies to connect new columns or deal with power supply failures."