To receive the above verbal update.

Ben Smith, Head of Commissioning/Communities explained to Members that the item had been added to the agenda as Councillor Da costa had raised some questions regarding the Borough’s street lighting. He continued to provide Members with an update on the Borough’s street lighting replacement programme which included the following main points:

Ø  14,000 streetlights in the Borough were being replaced as part of the scheme.

Ø  AA Lighting were carrying out the installation and the maintenance of the lights

Ø  The contract was awarded in July 2017 and 12,000 streetlights had already been replaced.

Ø  The programme was due to be completed in February 2018

Ø  A new management system allowed real-time notifications of broken lights

Ø  There was a two day turn around to repair or replace broken lights

Ø  SSE was not contracted by the Borough to repair cables or the electricity supply to the lights

Ø  The management system picked up the repeat faults and a suite of indicators were in place to help manage those

Ø  The contract with AA Lighting was managed by the commissioning team who held weekly meetings and monthly key indicator meetings to check performance

Ø  Replacement of lights was light for light – remove one light and replace it with a new one.

Ø  Moving forward, the AA Lighting contract was a long term co-terminus with warranty of equipment.

The Chairman stated he had received 25-30 complaints regarding lighting, he had found that the most complaints related to lights being too bright or too blue. He explained that the lights could be adjusted by a management system and all complaints were resolved. He felt the contract was working well and he had received no complaints from farmers; AA Lighting provided an excellent service.

Councillor Da Costa said he had heard concerns from residents about the failure of lighting in certain areas and also, about the poor level of response from the call centre. There were lights that were said to have been repaired but, they had not been. He asked the Head of Commissioning/Communities once onto the new regime of lighting, had a safety audit been carried out and had the response from the call centre improved at all. The Head of Commissioning/Communities responded there was a strategy for where the lighting was placed. The contract was to change light for light which was done to British Safety Standard. He added there might need to be a revisit of where lighting columns were placed, once the light swap was finished. Then the Borough could move on to finding out where lighting could be improved.

Regarding the responsiveness of the call centre, the head of Commissioning/Communities stated there was a reporting function on the Council’s website which sent request direct to AA Lighting for repair. There was no direct interaction with the call centre. If a resident called into Customer Services, they would log the incident in the same way as if a resident used the website. The contract management meetings took place monthly to check KPI’s and ensure all lights were working. Fines were issued for bulbs not repaired within strict deadlines.

The Head of Commissioning/Communities stated all lights were easily adjustable to lower settings if too bright, it was dynamic lighting. Councillor E. Wilson said he had received very positive comments from residents regarding safety since the new lighting had been in place. He was waiting on six lights for his area but, he understood they were being swapped out that week.

Mark Lampard, Finance Partner - Corporate Services & Operations explained to Members that savings of £450,000 over the next two years were on target to be met. Councillor Bicknell stated he was at the sharp end of the scheme. He said the light was different and the beauty of the lighting programme was that the lights could be individually adjusted by a computer. AA Lighting had also added extra shrouding to certain lights to prevent light leaking into homes. There were many light columns and lights that went back decades so it had taken some time to find bulbs to fit them. The Borough also had to address issues of some columns having no power to them which was beyond the Council’s control. He wanted to know where the issues raised by Councillor Da Costa was so that they could be rectified as soon as possible.

Councillor Hunt said she had received a complaint about a light shining straight into a residents bedroom. She rang the Council and got an exceptional service; officers went straight out and shrouded the light. The Chairman requested that Councillor Da Costa go directly to officers with his queries so that issues could be resolved at source and quickly as possible.