About 60 poles adorning the city's sports fields will be replaced by the Dunedin City Council after an audit found damage to the lights and poles including rusting, cracking, timber degradation and electrical faults.
The most degraded poles will be replaced first and all 60 will be operational in about a year.
Kettle Park, in South Dunedin, has already has 16 light poles installed, but they are not yet operational.
Council parks and cemetery manager Scott MacLean said about 50 poles were owned by rugby and football clubs while the rest were owned by the council.
The replacements would be paid for by the council, which would then take over ownership and ongoing maintenance, Mr MacLean said.
''Some sports clubs don't have the resources to pay for the pole replacements so, to mitigate any risk to the public, the council decided to approach the clubs with the offer of taking over ownership and replacing the poles as necessary.''
As sports fields were community facilities, it made sense to standardise ownership and provide for their ongoing maintenance, he said.
New poles were being installed before the older ones were removed so clubs could continue using the lights.
The new timber poles were the New Zealand standard for club training and the old halogen lights would be replaced by LEDs, which are cheaper to run, longer lasting and more efficient.
The work is expected to cost about $500,000, which was budgeted in the council's 10-year plan.
