A TOWN council wants to find money to help re-fit street lights.

Upton Town Council is looking into applying for a new £145,000 county council fund designed to address local concerns.

Organisations will be able to bid for grants of up to £20,000 from the Worcestershire County Council Community Solutions Fund, set up earlier this month.

At a town council meeting, town clerk Jo Adams said: “We can buy street lighting ourselves but it is quite expensive.

“There is a problem with one light in the town but it is expensive to get it back on when it doesn’t work.

“It would be good to get the problem sorted out and do a bit for the areas in Upton like the Waterside and Backfields Lane where they need doing.”

However, councillors heard if the Council received the money to fix one or more lights, these would belong to the town council and become their responsibility.

Councillor Betty Williams said the council should push for the money, saying: “The time has come and we cannot leave it and turn our back on it.”

Councillors decided to take a wider look at street lights around Upton and see how much money they could get for the work, with each street light reportedly costing up to £8,000 to install and maintain.

Town Council voted to look into the matter and make a further decision when all the figures are known.

The new community fund is designed to support projects reducing demand on county council services.

The meeting took place on June 25.