This issue arose at last week's Bellingham Ward Assembly.

What most of us had assumed was a localised set of lighting and street furniture renewals, was in fact presented to us at the meeting as a two borough wide street lighting renewal project.

LB Lewisham and LB Croydon have jointly entered in to a PFI deal with a national contractor named Skanska that will firstly renew all street lighting and some street signs in phases over the next four years. Skanska will then operate and maintain the lighting under a fixed period contract for a fee before handing back the assets to both boroughs.

Skanska are responsible for the design development and installation of the new systems and will become the operator and maintainer of all street lights.

At the meeting we were advised of the following:

Over the last couple of years a borough wide consultation had been undertaken by LB Lewisham. None present could recall having been notified of this or of having been invited to participate. Whilst a four page A5 glossy about the project was available, the output from the consultation was not included in the presentation pack.

Skanska are required to conduct a letter drop for every property in each area before they commence work. This appeared to be very patchy. Some residents received letters, some received letters after work commenced and some did not receive letters at all.

The lighting design principles agreed by the boroughs means that lighting provision will focus only on public pathways , highways and public areas. In practice this means that for example if a private pathway, garden or entrance-way currently enjoys the benefit of public lighting, this will not necessarily be the case for the new installation. Several residents complained that they had already been significantly disbenefitted by this.

Several significant issues were identified by residents where work had been completed. Amongst them were:

Poor or reduced lighting levels in paths and streets
Poor lighting in public areas particularly at entrances
Installation of street furniture/poles in the middle of pathways, presenting problems for disabled and sight impaired pedestrians.
Areas formerly covered by public lighting but are not necessarily owned by the council do not now have lighting provision.

There is a Skanska Customer Service Team based in Croydon who can be contacted at 0800 028 5968 and at email address customerserviceteam@skanska.co.uk

A single Liaison Officer has been appointed to represent both boroughs. He is currently an Officer/employee of LB Croydon and can be contacted at john.algar@workingwith.skanska.co.uk.