Agenda item

Street Lighting LED Upgrade

Decision:

RESOLVED

KEY DECISION

That the Executive:

a) Confirmed approval to proceed with the LED replacement and Central Management System (CMS) upgrade of streetlights within the PFI agreement with Connect Roads/ Balfour Beatty.

b) Delegated authority to the Executive Member for Highways, Travel and Assets, in consultation with the Executive Member for Finance, the Executive Director for Finance and the Executive Director for Place and Economy to:

i. secure and allocate appropriate funding, through Prudential Borrowing;

ii. agree the necessary changes to the PFI funding agreement with Connect Roads/Balfour Beatty to complete the required works.

Reason for Recommendations: The recommendations will deliver against the Council’s priorities to provide efficient services that deliver value for money, whilst maintaining a safe public highway and reduce carbon emissions in line with the Council’s commitment to becoming carbon net zero by 2030.

Alternative Options Considered:

· An alternative is to continue with the current street lighting lanterns, which would avoid the need to provide capital funding for investment. This option would not deliver the financial, social or environmental objectives of the proposed recommendations

· It would be possible to change the lanterns to LEDs, but not install the CMS. This would not deliver the operational and potential financial and environmental benefits of having remote control over the network of streetlights, so this is not recommended.

· The Council owns and manages streetlights, inherited from the former district and boroughs, which are not part of the street lighting PFI. In order to convert those assets to LED, they would first need to be transferred into the PFI. It is not proposed to transfer those assets to the PFI through this project as it will require additional inspection and upgrade of those assets in order to meet the strict specification requirements of the PFI. This is a separate consideration, and investment, that the Council may want to explore at another time.

Minutes:

The Chair invited Cllr Graham Lawman, Executive Member for Highways, Travel and Assets to introduce a report that set out the proposal to replace the existing Highway Street Lighting Private Finance Initiative stock lanterns with light-emitting diode (LED) units, whilst maintaining current lighting standards.

Cllr Lawman stated that the report only referred to those streetlights within the Council’s PFI agreement with Connect Roads/ Balfour Beatty. It did not include those street lighting assets formerly owned and managed by the district and borough councils. In addition, no areas that had previously been de-illuminated would be re-illuminated.

It was heard that the project had been considered by the Council’s Strategic Capital Board with a case for investment made on the basis of a number of benefits including lowering of the Council’s carbon footprint, mitigation of future increases in energy costs, maintenance of current lighting standards, the increased life of assets and the ability to improve management and potentially further reduce costs through remote monitoring. It was anticipated that the pay-back point would be after approximately 10.5 years and the installation programme would last around 120 weeks.

Both Cllrs Harriet Pentland and Matthew Binley spoke to welcome the proposal, especially the positive reduction in CO2 emissions that would arise as a result of the installations.