PA
An angry mum is 'pleading' with housing developers to switch on street lighting outside her home - before a child ends up falling in a flood drain.
Sarah Churchill, 28, told her local paper that she and other residents in Northwood Drive, Kingsway, Gloucestershire, are 'literally being kept in the dark like mushrooms' by the council, and that as the nights are drawing in, she is having to 'rely on people's Christmas decorations for any source of light'.
Sarah, mum to two-year-old Alfie, also says she is concerned that a child might come to harm in one of the 30ft-long flood drains which are filled with water and are up to six feet deep which run through the residents' gardens.
"We are all professionals with young families and this is an accident waiting to happen," Sarah, a former accountant, said.
The new houses, which are still managed by their developers, Persimmon Homes, have reportedly not yet been handed over to the control of the local authority.
Sarah told reporters that she has lived on the estate for a year and that the problem has been continuous.
Her local county councillor Jackie Hall has now asked for the lights to be put back on.
"The residents have been concerned for some time now about the street lighting at this stretch," she said.
The local council said that the developers will be 'carrying out a night-time audit this week and then ordering the required repairs'.
But with the work expected to take at least a week, Sarah and her neighbours will still be kept in the dark for a while longer...