Agenda item

The joint report of the Executive Director of Place (Croydon) and Executive Director, Resources & Regeneration (Lewisham) is attached.

The PFI Contract Manager summarised the main points of the report. PS1 was completed 31 October 2016 and the Croydon Public Lighting Network Cable has been de-energised with the old stumps having been removed. Remaining stumps being found were being removed within the target of 20 business days.

There were no issues in PS2 with planned maintenance or electrical testing, and the provider had achieved lighting performance of over 99%. It was noted that this performance was difficult to beat. Night scouts had observed minimal issues and checks on car parks and subways, where lights could not be connected to the Central Management System, were being done in the day as they were operation 24 hours.

For PS3 the Committee learned that the provider was achieving one hour response for emergency callouts, but that it had requested this be extended to two hours. The provider had been told that this would not be accepted as it provided no benefit to the authorities The Contract Manager stated that the permit teams of both authorities were engaged in adding a new KPI for all faults to be resolved in 30 days.

PS4 showed that 95% of Customer calls to the Provider call centre had been answered in 25 seconds between September 2017 and August 2018, with the exception of December and March. Following this, financial deductions had been applied.

In PS5 and PS7 the Committee noted that all Monthly and Annual Reports had been received on time.

PS6 demonstrated that there were no issues with health and safety and few permitting issues. The officer highlighted that the provider would need to be awarded 25 penalty points before financial adjustments could be made and that this total had not been reached.

PS9 showed that almost no complaints had been received, with the exception of a report of a Branch Node failure in Lewisham, which had been quickly resolved. Members commented that they were keen to see how quickly the lighting timings adjusted around Day Light Savings, and if this would cause an increase in complaints. The officer highlighted to the Committee that a section had been added to the report detailing carbon emissions.

The Committee agreed that this report was positive and that the provider was performing well.

Councillor Kevin Bonavia informed the Contract Officer that he had received some complaints from residents about the brightness of lights in their streets. The Councillor queried the cost and ease of adjusting the light levels of specific street lights.

In response the Director of Public Realm clarified that changing this was very easy and would incur a low cost (depending on the scale of change), but that lights should be changed on a street or area level and not individually. The Director further highlighted that environmental factors (such as crime, traffic junctions and the viability of existing CCTV cameras) should be taken into account before lights were dimmed.

Councillor Kevin Bonavia enquired as to what attachments to street lighting were permitted other than stickers and banners. The Director of Public Realm explained that there were regulations for this, but that most things that could be considered an ‘Authority attachment’ were permissible as long as they followed guidelines. The Strategic Procurement and Commercial Services Manager highlighted that an FAQ on festive attachments had recently been sent out and would be recirculated to Members.

The Committee RESOLVED to:

·        NOTE the performance of Service Provider in respect of the street lighting PFI for September 2017 - August 2018

·        APPROVE the proposed unitary charges for 2018/19 of £2.505m for Croydon and £1.409m for Lewisham (based on a 64% to 36% split).

·        NOTE the agreed Deed of Variation from both Authorities to enable CLSLJC to be held once a year.