FRUSTRATED residents fear a spate of attempted break-ins is being worsened by developers dragging their feet over fixing street lighting.

Householders in one of Bicester's newest estates at Kingsmere have been kept in the dark for months, despite repeated calls for repairs.

One problem area includes the main route into the development where about seven street lights are reportedly out along Whitelands Way.

Kingsmere resident Andy Levis said: "There are about seven lights out in a stretch of just 200 yards in Whitelands Way. It means some parts of the road are in complete darkness."

Mr Levis is also among those who has been victim to recent attempted break-ins.

He added: "I had a couple of people trying to break into my garage, another neighbour had people checking their car which was caught on camera, plus another few break-ins the other side of the estate.

"A lot of people are now setting up CCTV and obviously with the lights out it is just not helping.

"Quite a lot of people are getting frustrated."

Building on the Kingsmere site started in 2012 and the estate will eventually have 2,450 homes.

The hundreds of homes already on the development, led by Countryside Properties, have been built by several developers, but the roads have not yet been adopted by Oxfordshire County Council.

As a result, the responsibility for fixing various street lights come under different developers within the site and seems to have fallen between the cracks.

Kingsmere Residents Association co-chairman Graham Brogden said: "Residents remain literally in the dark about why it takes so long for a developer to change a lightbulb or even wire them up when they have been installed.

"One particular section of road has had streetlights installed by one developer three years ago, but because they are on another developers road they haven't been wired up to the mains."

Streets reported to have broken or unconnected street lights include Whitelands Way, Epsom Way and Ascot Way.

Mr Brogden added: "Some areas have been in the dark for years and this all points yet again to bad planning, poor communication and mis-management."

Some residents claim developers are dragging their feet in order to pass the problem to the council once it adopts the roads.

Countryside said in a statement that it was working to resolve the problem affecting a 'limited' number of lights.

Countryside Properties (Bicester) Ltd Andrew Carrington added: "Whilst the majority of repairs on the primary roads – for which Countryside are responsible – have now been completed, we are awaiting parts for a small number of columns which will be installed as soon as these are available."

She said these repairs would then allow the county to adopt the roads.

Countryside also said it was aware of the issues reported within the areas covered by individual developers, including a number of lights awaiting connection by SSE.

It has notified developers to make the repairs.