Street lights to be remotely monitored after death

A remote street light monitoring system will be installed after a man was fatally hit by a car at night, a council said.

John Hickmott, 63, died on 19 February 2025 at about 19:15 GMT while crossing the V11 Tongwell Street in Northfield, Milton Keynes.

The street light above the area where the collision happened on the single carriageway was not working at the time, a prevention of future deaths report released in December stated.

Milton Keynes City Council said that by April, "most of the highways street lighting... will have had a remote monitoring system installed... enabling proactive inspection and early identification of any street lights out".

The authority added that these systems would replace most "manual scouting" of faulty street lights.

Adam Smith, the assistant coroner for Milton Keynes, said in the report that the driver of the vehicle would only have seen Hickmott at the last moment.

The report showed documents from Milton Keynes City Council indicated a number of street lights on the V11 had been reported as not working in October and November 2024.

According to the authority's procedure at the time these lights should have been repaired within 28 and 14 days, respectively.

Yet the report found these lights had not been repaired at the time of the collision involving Hickmott the following February, nor when the forensic collision investigator undertook a reconstruction a further 21 days after that incident.

Responding to the prevention of future death report Milton Keynes City Council offered "its sincere condolences to Mr Hickmott's family and all those affected".

It stated that "street light repair works are contractually required to be fixed by our contractor within 14 days" and the "requirements of the contract have been reiterated via formal notification".

Hickmott died at the scene from multiple fractures and cardiogenic shock.

The driver of the car that struck Hickmott was travelling below the road's 60mph speed limit and tried to take evasive action, the report added.

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