Dartford Street Lights: 28 Replacements Are Overdue

Kent County Council has identified 56 street lighting columns and lit signposts in Dartford borough that failed structural testing and need replacing. Twenty-eight of them are past the date the county set for the work.

The list is in the Highways Forward Works Programme that Kent Highways put to Dartford’s Joint Transportation Board on Tuesday 1 September. (Highway Works Programme Dartford, September 2026, Kent Highways)

The report explains what the list is: “Structural testing of KCC owned streetlights has identified the following as requiring replacement.” These are not bulbs that have gone out. They are columns and signposts that failed a structural check, which is why each one carries a due date.

Six have been done. Twenty-two are not late and are booked for completion by December 2026. The remaining 28 are listed as “work overdue”, with the county saying the job has been accepted and is “due to be completed by September 2026”, which is this month.

The 19 roads with overdue replacements

The oldest entry, a lit signpost on Windsor Drive, was due on 23 September 2025. On the county’s own promised date it will be finished almost a year late.

Grouped by the date the county set, the 28 break down as one due in September 2025, 14 due in November 2025, four in December 2025 and nine in February 2026.

Only one row gives a reason for the delay. Chesterfield Drive is “awaiting vegetation clearance”. The rest simply record the job as accepted and overdue.

Joyce Green appears more often than anywhere else: Riverside Way, Keyes Road, Welcome Avenue, Farthing Close and Browning Road account for nine of the 28.

A further 22 replacements are scheduled by December 2026. They are on:

• Lowfield Street and Princes Road
• Salmon Street, Marsh Street and University Way
• Stone Place Road and Church Road
• Johnsons Way and Pilgrims View, Greenhithe
• Powder Mill Lane, Hawley
• Birchwood Road, Summerhouse Drive and Old Bexley Lane, which the report lists under Bexley rather than a Dartford area

What else the county has programmed here

The same report sets out the rest of Kent Highways’ work in the borough. The resurfacing entries readers are most likely to notice:

• Parsonage Lane and Darenth Hill, Sutton at Hone and Darenth, Main Road to Green Street Green Road: programmed 5 August 2026.
• A225 Main Road, Sutton at Hone, Arnolds Lane to Longmarsh View: programmed 11 January 2027.
• Gore Road, Dartford, western footway from Lunedale Road: “to be designed and programmed”, with no date.
• Cedar Drive, Sutton at Hone, and Harold Road, Hawley: footway preservation, both “currently programmed for 2027/2028”.

Three safety schemes are in the pipeline. A road marking refresh and vegetation cut-back on the A225 Princes Road has been ordered for October to December 2026. Queuing traffic and lane discipline signs on the B255 Bean Road at Bluewater, and staggered crossroads warning signs at East Hill and St Albans Road, are both still in design.

On the bigger schemes, the Bean Road underpass, which will carry a Fastrack busway and a footway and cycleway between Eastern Quarry and Bluewater, is in construction, with completion “currently anticipated in late 2027”. Galley Hill Road remains closed and unfunded: Kent has bid to the government’s Structures Fund to reinstate the collapsed A226 between Swanscombe and Northfleet, and the report says “announcements are expected in Autumn 2026”.

The report also records that there is no bridge work and no traffic signal work planned in the district at all this year.

What it means for you

• A dark or damaged street light is worth reporting even if it is on this list. Being on the programme has not, so far, meant being done.
• The county has committed to a date. All 28 overdue replacements are recorded as due to be completed by September 2026. That is a checkable promise, and we will check it against the next report to the board.
• These columns belong to Kent County Council, not the borough council. The report names Sue Kinsella as the street light asset manager and gives one number for its contact officers, 03000 418181.
• The Joint Transportation Board’s papers, including the full appendices, are published on the borough council’s website. (Agenda, Joint Transportation Board, 1 September 2026)

Related: Dartford roadworks and travel updates and the Galley Hill Road Structures Fund bid.