A DARWEN street was lacking festive spirit for several weeks after faulty cabling left the Christmas lights in darkness.

The lights in Market Street along the stretch which contains CJ's cafe and clothing shop Ethel Austin, stopped working a few weeks ago, town centre ward councillor Dave Hollings told a council meeting.

Following a number of complaints from his constituents and local residents, Coun Hollings questioned the ruling council about the problem at the executive meeting held in Blackburn town hall this week.

Darwen's Christmas lights were switched on by Carley Stenson, who plays Steph Dean in the Channel Four soap Hollyoaks, with her band Diamond on November 24.

During the meeting Coun Alan Cottam, the executive member of regeneration for Blackburn with Darwen Council, said there had been damage to cabling which provides electricity to the lights in Market Street.

He told the meeting that United Utilities had promised to sort out the problem.

United Utilities repaired the cabling last week and now Blackburn with Darwen Council engineers will go to Market Street to correct the Christmas light settings, the meeting heard.

A council spokesman yesterday said the lights had now been repaired.

After the meeting, Coun Hollings, Labour coun-cillor for the Sunnyhurst ward, said: "I had a number of complaints from people about this.

"This is an important part of the town centre during Christmas time.

"The coalition was calling for more lights in Darwen when we were in power but there were Christmas lights in Darwen that didn't work."

Coun Cottam told the meeting: "We are looking into the complaint and we will be going out to inspect the lights.

"We were waiting for United Utilities to fix some cabling which was damaged by contractors.

"The cables were finally fixed last week and now that has been done we can go and look at the Christmas lights.

"The council will be going out to arrange the lights to be up and running as soon as possible."