A woman waits for a bus on Manners St in central Wellington, illuminated by little more than the glow of her phone.

Just down the road from the Beehive, in the heart of the nation's capital, the street lights have been out for months and the council appears powerless to do much about it.

Have the street lights in your area been off for a long time? Email newstips@stuff.co.nz

One complainant told Stuff he alerted Wellington City Council to outages on Manners, Victoria, Dixon and Willis streets in the capital's CBD back in March.

ROBERT KITCHIN/STUFF Manners St is typically one of the busiest in Wellington's CBD. Of late, it has been one of the darkest.

He followed up with the council in late April after seeing little improvement and was told his complaint had been passed on to lines company Wellington Electricity, which was "making small inroads".

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In May he was told Wellington Electricity was "still working on the problem".

ROBERT KITCHIN/STUFF In Wellington, the city council owns the lights but privately-owned lines company Wellington Electricity supplies the power.

Up until a few days ago, five out of six street lights at the upper end of Manners St – one of Wellington's busiest – were dark, leaving mostly shop windows and traffic lights to illuminate the high-pedestrian area.

When Stuff checked again on Tuesday night, most of the lights in the CBD area were working again, with the exception of two on Manners St and and one on Victoria St.

Geraldine Murphy, chairwoman of Inner-City Wellington, which advocates on behalf of inner-city residents, said the street light situation was unacceptable.

ROBERT KITCHIN/STUFF A pedestrian makes their way down Manners St with only the glow of shop windows to light their path.

"It shouldn't be that hard to find out what the problem is and to fix it," she said.

"If it is a difficult problem, [Wellington Electricity] should be able to front up and say, 'this is a difficult problem for these reasons and this is how long it's going to be [before it's fixed]'. It shouldn't take that long to fix lights on a main thoroughfare."

Although there was not a "heightened" safety risk on the street because of light from surrounding shops, the problem was worse at either end of the street as there were few, if any, shop lights on at night, Murphy said.

ROBERT KITCHIN/STUFF Manners St after-dark has been particularly dark recently.

"That's potentially a safety risk that needs to be taken into account as well."

A council spokeswoman said on Tuesday they had little power to improve the street light network, as it was the responsibility of privately-owned Wellington Electricity

"If three or more lights are out in a sequence, it is highly likely the fault lies with the Wellington Electricity network and the council will inform them," she said.

ROBERT KITCHIN/STUFF Manners St recently had five out of six street lamps not working.

"If only one light is out, it is highly likely the fault is with the light, which is the council's responsibility."

While the council owns the street lights themselves, Wellington Electricity is responsible for supplying power to them, as well as managing the poles, wires and equipment that deliver electricity to about 166,000 residents and businesses across Wellington, Porirua and the Hutt Valley.

The company is owned by CK Infrastructure Holdings Ltd and Power Assets Holdings Limited, which are overseen by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing.

Wellington Electricity chief executive Greg Skelton did not respond to questions.

The council spokeswoman said CBD outages could be caused by a number of things, including infrastructure, networks, severe weather, crashes and blown fuses.

"We work in coordination with [Wellington Electricity] to resolve outages as quickly as possible."

If the public noticed lights out, she recommend they could still contact the council.

"Faults can occur either on the Wellington Electricity network, or within the light itself."