Renfrewshire Council has taken swift action to deal with street lighting repairs following a contractor’s failure to carry out work requests.
Council bosses made the decision to bring in additional support to carry out street light maintenance at the weekend to ensure that lighting faults do not become an issue of public safety.
The increased resources will be used to deal with a backlog of faulty street lights resulting from a failure of street lighting maintenance contractor Lightways Contracts Ltd to carry out instructed work at the agreed cost.
The dispute could have resulted in the council paying significantly more than the agreed cost for carrying out repairs.
An independent adjudicator issued findings on 23 January which upheld the council’s position and instructed Lightways to pay the full costs of the adjudication.
Councillor Mike Holmes, convener of Renfrewshire Council’s Procurement Sub-Committee, said:
“Following the adjudicator’s findings in the council’s favour, we expect Lightways Contracts to fulfil their contract as agreed.
“However, this unnecessary dispute has disrupted the service that we expect to be provided to Renfrewshire residents.
“Our first priority is to ensure that faulty street lights do not become an issue of public safety.
“We have therefore taken swift action to bring in additional lighting maintenance contractors to deal with outstanding street light repairs and, as long as weather conditions permit, we expect the backlog of repairs to be cleared within two weeks.”