Skanska-Laing Consortium reaches Financial Close for Croydon & Lewisham Street Lighting PFI Project. Skanska and John Laing will each invest £4.5 million, and Skanska will receive a construction contract worth £74 million, which will be included in the Skanska order bookings for the second quarter of 2011.
Skanska and John Laing, in a 50/50 consortium, have today announced that they have reached Financial Close on the Croydon & Lewisham Street Lighting PFI project. This follows the Consortium’s appointment as Preferred Bidder in February this year. This is the second street lighting PFI that the consortium is involved in, following financial close of the Surrey Street Lighting project at the end of 2009.
The clients for the project are the London Borough of Croydon and the London Borough of Lewisham. Under the contract, the Skanska-Laing Consortium will take responsibility for the design, build, finance and operation of the stock of lighting columns and illuminated street furniture across the boroughs of Croydon and Lewisham for a period of 25 years starting in August 2011.
Skanska, which has combined its experience in infrastructure services, utilities and public realm works will be responsible for the design, installation and ongoing operations works on the project. During the first five years, the team will replace approximately 38,000 street lights and 8,000 street signs and bollards. Work also includes the refurbishment of a further 4,000 street lights.
In addition, Skanska will be responsible for the operation and maintenance of the street lighting stock, including the provision of help desk services and emergency response during the life of the project valued at around £2 million per annum, the first two years of which will also be included in Skanska’s order bookings for the second quarter of 2011.
Under the contract the team will provide new improved and energy-efficient street lighting across the boroughs, which will directly support better road safety, deliver an improved night time environment and economy and help reduce street crime and anti-social behaviour.
The Central Management System – a key part of the solution – will provide a high level of control enabling street lighting levels to be varied in real-time from a central control station. This will provide a number of benefits to the community, such as the ability to enhance light levels in specific locations at peak times, improved visibility in response to incidents, remote fault detection, and lower carbon emissions from reduced night scouting activities, electricity metering and Authority access to the reporting system.
Bill Hocking, Executive Vice President of Skanska UK said: “Today marks an important step in this project. We look forward to working with our partners, John Laing, and the Councils to deliver safer, energy efficient public lighting services for the people of Croydon and Lewisham.”
John Laing’s Head of Transport, Andy Pearson, said: “We are delighted to have achieved Financial Close on this important scheme and we look forward to working with the Councils and Skanska to ensure communities within the Boroughs of Croydon and Lewisham will have an efficient, ‘best in class’ and value for money street lighting service.”