The parish council of Netherwick Stape has voted to postpone the repair of the village's only broken streetlamp, after reviewing which videos performed best on the parish's public information channel.

The lamp, on Ferry Lane, has been dark since spring. In that time the unlit stretch of pavement has become the parish's most reliable source of footage, with residents posting clips of themselves walking home past the old quarry wall, narrating in whispers and describing what they could not see.

At Tuesday's meeting, the council's channels working group presented a review of the material. The dark path videos, the group found, were watched by more residents than any other parish output, including the fete livestream and the notice about the drains.

The decision

Councillors agreed by a show of hands to defer the repair, which had been costed and scheduled twice, until the new year. The reasons given were "scheduling" and "the season", neither of which was elaborated on.

Dr Marnie Ellwood-Pike, chair of the working group, said the deferral should not be read as neglect.

"The lamp is a priority and it will be fixed," she said. "But we would be failing the village if we switched it back on before the second week of Advent, when everyone's inside anyway."

A request to residents

In the same agenda item, the council issued guidance to households on the unlit side of Ferry Lane, asking them to "hold off on torches, headtorches and reflective jackets" while filming, and to keep the quarry wall in shot where possible.

"We're not asking anyone to be unsafe," said Dr Ellwood-Pike. "We're asking them to look it. A torch in frame reads as reassurance, and reassurance is underperforming."

One resident, Mrs Coralie Tamms-Brett, said she had been walking the lane twice a week since June and had begun to recognise her own steps in other people's videos.

"I said 'what was that' in week three," she said. "It's in four separate clips. Two of them have my dog."

What happens next

The working group has proposed a follow-up series in which the lamp is repaired on camera, ending with a ceremonial switch-on at the spring fete. A second broken lamp, near the post office, has been identified as a possible successor and is described in the minutes as "promising".

The minutes, published Friday, were themselves filmed and posted, and are currently the council's second-best-performing upload.