Agenda and minutes

To appoint a Chair and Vice-Chair for the Croydon & Lewisham Street Lighting Joint Committee for the 2020/21 municipal year.

The Committee Clerk requested nominations for the positions of Chair and

Vice-Chair for the municipal year 2020/21.

Councillor Sophie McGeevor nominated and Councillor Muhammad Ali seconded the nomination to appoint Councillor Stuart King as Chair for the remainder of the 2020/21 municipal year.

Councillor Stuart King nominated and Councillor Muhammad Ali seconded the nomination to appoint Councillor Sophie McGeevor as Vice-Chair for the remainder of the 2020/21 municipal year.

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 4 November 2019 as an accurate record.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 4 November 2019 were agreed as an accurate record.

In accordance with the Council’s Code of Conduct and the statutory

provisions of the Localism Act, Members and co-opted Members of the

Council are reminded that it is a requirement to register disclosable

pecuniary interests (DPIs) and gifts and hospitality to the value of which

exceeds ?50 or multiple gifts and/or instances of hospitality with a

cumulative value of ?50 or more when received from a single donor within

a rolling twelve month period. In addition, Members and co-opted Members

are reminded that unless their disclosable pecuniary interest is registered

on the register of interests or is the subject of a pending notification to the

Monitoring Officer, they are required to disclose those disclosable

pecuniary interests at the meeting. This should be done by completing the

Disclosure of Interest form and handing it to the Democratic Services

representative at the start of the meeting. The Chair will then invite

Members to make their disclosure orally at the commencement of Agenda

item 3. Completed disclosure forms will be provided to the Monitoring

Officer for inclusion on the Register of Members’ Interests.

There were no disclosures of a pecuniary interest not already registered.

To receive notice of any business not on the agenda which in the opinion

of the Chair, by reason of special circumstances, be considered as a

matter of urgency.

There was no items of urgent business.

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

John Algar, PFI Manager LB Croydon (LBC), introduced the report which advised the Committee of the overall performance of the service provider during the period September 2019 - August 2020.

He stated there was an action from the previous meeting to circulate a paper detailing the differences of LED versus the current lighting. There had been work between both authorities speaking to Skanska and they were currently in the stage of finalising technical and financial details. Both authorities did not deem the payback periods appropriate, nine years for LBC and 14 years for LB Lewisham (LBL), and further discussions would be going ahead. Once received, an update would be forwarded to the Committee.

In response to Councillor McGeevor asking if this was detailed in the business case in the appendices to the report, John Algar, PFI Contract Manager (LBC), confirmed it was, however stated there was now an update to that with a better understanding and greater technical and financial detail. The updated business case, which included the financial updates, would be shared with the Committee.

Councillor McGeevor stated that LEDs increasingly made sense, in the climate of decreasing carbon emissions over the years and including the de-carbonisation of the National Grid, and asked how that was taken into account in this assessment. John Algar, PFI Contract Manager (LBC), responded that the decarbonisation agenda was an initiative of the power generation companies and not the council. He added that choosing to deliver additional dimming regimes would provide some carbon reduction benefit. At the moment, both Councils had the capability of dimming without moving to LED. If adopted then further financial savings would be made in conjunction with reduced carbon emissions. The team continued to discuss dimming options with Skanska.

Mark Averill, Authorised Person and Head of Highways (LBC), said that they already had an energy efficient lighting specification, Cosmopolitan lamps and Central Management System, so gaining savings for swapping efficient lanterns for slightly more efficient was not comparable to the substantial upgrade you would have seen when the contract was initially let. Councillor McGeevor agreed that this was a sensible approach and neither authority wanted to make costly changes for insignificant benefits of carbon emission reduction.

Councillor Ali said that Base had announced a £1 million funding offer for energy reduction and that Salix Finance provided an interest free loan related to street lighting. He asked if this could potentially reduce the funding gap and payback period and suggested this could be explored in a new business case. John Algar, PFI Contract Manager (LBC), confirmed they were aware of Salix funding opportunities.

John Algar, PFI Contract Manager (LBC), summarised the main points of the Operational Performance Standards Overview:

PS1 - Core Investment Programme (CIP)

The CIP was completed on 31 October 2016.

PS2 - Planned Maintenance, Inspection and Testing

The report detailed areas in both boroughs, covered by Skanska, and performance was on track. The tables showed the overall performance over the last 12 months for lights “in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5/20

The following motion is to be moved and seconded as the “camera resolution” where it is proposed to move into part B of a meeting:

"That, under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act, 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information falling within those paragraphs indicated in Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972, as amended".

This item was not required.