Expensive and ill thought through

12.26.34am GMT Sat 5th Dec 2009

Street lighting

The county council's approach to replacing its ageing street light stock has been condemned as 'expensive and ill-thought through' by the Liberal Democrats.

Spokesperson Malcolm Cowan said today: 'The county council has spent years procrastinating and is now rushing a decision to replace the stock using PFI - basically getting the private sector to manage the stock while borrowing money at a higher rate of interest than the council could get if it were to borrow the money itself. 

'This is planned without having done a proper audit of current needs or the likely needs over the next 25 years: many residents want to rethink the extent of street light provision and we all want flexibility in terms of costs and new low-energy technology.

'Before any long-term contract is let to the private sector - a sector which has anyway proved disastrous for Herts Highways - there needs to be an assurance that provision can be future-proofed. We would expect that we can spend less on energy costs and less on wasted light, but the council appear to be accepting the new regime will be more expensive. But charging into a major contract like this is likely to commit the county to an expensive white elephant.'

Malcolm pointed out that the whole exercise depended on 'modern British and European standards.' He said: 'The fact that there is no such thing as a European standard on street lighting rather suggests that the council does not know what it is talking about. And standards are likely to change over the next 25 years as energy costs start to rise sharply.

'Moreover the report to Cabinet itself admits: "The timescales involved ...do not allow sufficient time for a policy development, consultation and approval process." In other words - it's being done in a rush and we could end up with a mess and a muddle.'