Problems with the street lights in Canbury Park Gardens could cost as much as £100,000 to fix.

The shocking figure was revealed following complaints by a cyclist who said the lack of lighting in the park – because of a broken lighting system – was a safety concern.

Dominik Lemanski, 34, of Albany Mews, was told by his safer neighbourhood team, by email, of the hefty price tag associated with fixing the lighting problem.

Kingston Council confirmed fixing the lighting was expected to cost in the region of £100,000 because there was a fault with the wiring and replacement of the whole system was being considered.

An email to Mr Lemanski from Kingston police said it was believed the whole system needed to be changed because it was old, inadequate and did not enable individual repairs to be carried out.

Mr Lemanski said the situation was ridiculous.

He said: “You go there at night and go under Kingston Bridge and hit the park and it is pitch black.

“That is a walkway from Kingston station up to north Kingston and someone will get attacked, robbed or worse in that park. It is dangerous.

“It needs to spend some money and sort this problem out.”

Kingston Council apologised for the inconvenience and said lights installed in the canopy of trees had been out of action because when there was a fault in one part of the above ground wiring it affected the whole 510m length.

A council spokesman said: “Identifying where the fault lies along this stretch is very problematic.

“Under this system there is no way of isolating the fault.

“We are exploring options for the replacement of this lighting system with individual columns.

“We have calculated that 27 columns would be required on this stretch.”

He added: “We have spent a considerable amount of time looking to identify the fault and design a replacement scheme.

“Funding is a major limiting factor, and a bid for external funding to replace the lighting as part of wider improvements to the gardens was unsuccessful last year, although we have re-submitted the bid again this year.”

Councillors David Cunningham and Dennis Doe said a proposal to get new lighting in the park had been included in a heritage lottery bid to pay for enhancement work at the gardens.