Streetlights remain priority as 10 700 lights fixed in May

08 June 2025

In May 2025, City energy teams fixed more than 10 700 streetlights, out of a total of 29 700 energy-related requests, as the City's commitment to safer and brighter communities continues. This follows a successful initiative to eradicate backlogs and improve the turnaround times for service requests.

'The highest number of streetlight-related requests came from Area East, which includes our Helderberg, Oostenberg, Parow and Bloemhof areas, followed by Area South, including Muizenberg, Mitchells Plain, Wynberg and Gugulethu. Vandalism, theft and illegal connections across the metro continue to impact turnaround times as damaged infrastructure often needs to be entirely replaced, which could take many hours or even days in some cases. We have various interventions to reduce the risk of these crimes, but as always we need the help of our residents to report suspicious activity of their neighbourhood power infrastructure.

'We can also see the impact that the more frequent inclement weather is having on service requests and volumes being attended to. Wet and windy weather often increases the number of service requests and also may slow down turnaround times as it is typically dangerous for our teams to do electrical work in wet and windy weather. We thank our customers for their understanding. Our teams will always do everything in their power to complete electrical work as fast as possible if it is safe to do so,' said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Alderman Xanthea Limberg.
 
The City manages more than 245 000 streetlights across the metro.
 
Requests attended to per metro area - theft and vandalism - remains the biggest driver of streetlight, and power outages:

Protect Your Power
Report suspicious behaviour to the City’s Public Emergency Communication Centre: 021 480 7700
The SAPS remains the lead authority in crime prevention.
 
*Note: the data looks at all streetlight-related service requests closed over a particular two-week period. Data is dynamic and new requests are constantly added to the already logged requests, as well as historic service requests. The data looks only at streetlight-related requests and does not include other energy service requests attended to over the period in review.
 
For service requests:
First please log a request online: www.capetown.gov.za/servicerequests
Or:
Phone: 086 0103 089 (Option 3)
Email: power@capetown.gov.za
SMS: 31220

Please note the City Call Centre WhatsApp channel is temporarily unavailable.

 
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Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office