Cllr Simon Hoar and Cllr Alan Smith were unanimously re-elected Chair and Vice-Chair respectively.

RESOLVED that the Part A minutes of the meeting of the London Boroughs of Croydon and Lewisham Street Lighting Joint Committee held on 17 April 2012 be signed as an accurate record.

Apologies were received from Councillor Alan Smith (London Borough of Lewisham).

There were no disclosures of interest recorded at the meeting.

There was none.

RESOLVED that the allocation of business between Part A and Part B of the Agenda be confirmed.

 The committee RESOLVED:

• That the minimum number of meetings required of the Joint Committee in each contract year be reduced from 4 to 1 during the remainder of the contract period. This constitutes a variation of the terms of the Joint Committee's Constitution, which is contained in Schedule 3 of the Street Lighting PFI Governance Agreement between the two authorities
• That meetings of the Joint Committee be arranged for early March 2013, prior to the Council Budget meeting, followed by another meeting in September or early October 2013.

 The following points of the performance standards were highlighted:

• 2473 columns had been removed by 17 October 2012 and a slightly lower number of new columns had been installed
• Milestone 2 for the 12 month period may not be achieved.
• As payment is based on performance, the amount will be reduced if agreed targets are not met
• Formal notice has been given of lower payments as the monitoring report is linked to the payment process
• It is planned to progress Milestone 3 within 18 months, although this may not be reached either despite the fact that additional resources have been secured to do the work

It was observed that there were old and new columns in place at a number of locations. Officers explained that old lights could not always be disconnected straight after the installation of a new column as the link-in with UK Power Network was insufficient. The issue may have to be escalated to improve performance.

Members were advised that the percentage of lights in working order at any one time had reached 98.3%, which exceeded the target of 98%. It is expected that the number of outages will increase with winter weather and that the target will consequently be harder to reach.

Asked about the causes of outages, officers explained that these were mainly tree canopies and working on highways with engineering difficulties. A workshop meeting is planned for late October 2012 for all parties concerned to investigate and agree solutions to these problems.

Members were advised that "contestable works" could be carried out by any service provider, allowing for more flexibility, but that "non-contestable works" could only be carried out by UK Power Networks.  

The committee RESOLVED to note:

1. the performance of Skanska Laing (SKL, the Service Provider) for June 2012 to August 2012.
2. the Core Investment programme for both Croydon and Lewisham for the duration of the 5 year programme for which financial approvals are required.

The next meeting of the Joint Committee is to be arranged for early March 2013, prior to the Council Budget meeting, followed by another meeting on 16 October 2013.