The ball is back in the court of the county council after two other local authorities declined to take on maintenance responsibilities for certain street lights in Yeovil.

It started in November last year when Chris Elcome, of the county's highway lighting department, wrote to a South Somerset District Council officer Mike Johns.

Mr Elcome had identified a number of streetlights in Yeovil which were "outside the limits of the publicly adopted highway", and wondered if a deal could be struck.

The proposed deal would be that the county council replaced the lights, with the district council accepting responsibility for all future maintenance.

Mr Johns, however, was not interested and wrote back saying: "I have inspected the sites in question and am of the opinion that none of them are the responsibility of South Somerset District Council.

"Accordingly, I have forwarded the query on to parties that may be prepared to accept responsibility."

Two of the sites, North Terrace and Smith's Terrace, are within the boundaries of Yeovil Town Council, which took a view similar to Mr Johns.

Members of the buildings and civic matters committee agreed it would be inappropriate for the town council to take on responsibility given that the county council was already responsible for lighting adjoining adopted roads, and had the necessary plant and machinery to undertake future maintenance.