Surrey Lighting Services (a 50/50 partnership between John Laing and Skanska) achieved Financial Close on the Surrey Street Lighting PFI project in November 2009. The client is Surrey County Council.
Under the contract, the Surrey Lighting Services is responsible for the design, build, finance and operation of the stock of lighting columns across the Surrey County for a period of 25 years. The design, installation and ongoing operations will be carried out by Skanska.
The contract to replace all Surrey’s 88,000 old orange streetlights with white smart lamps commenced in March 2010 and has led to new lights being installed in Reigate, Banstead, Guildford and Spelthorne.
Once completed, the project will replace the county’s night time orange glow with the clarity of brighter white lights, increasing visibility and making the county’s streets safer for motorists, cyclists and pedestrians. The Campaign to Protect Rural England has praised the scheme for the reduction in light pollution because the new lights direct their beam downwards.
The project is set to save the council at least £12 million over the next 25 years through lower energy bills and a better contract deal.
A total of 18,000 streetlights have so far been installed and maintenance of Surrey’s streetlights has improved significantly. The number of reports of faults across the county have halved and on average it now takes just three working days to repair a street lighting fault.
