The Daily Echo and BBC News reports will have come about because Southampton City Council made a
press release "launching" the PFI in Southampton. I still have no idea what they mean by a launch, seeing as the contract officially starts on April 1st. Here are some selected quotes:
As part of the contract Southampton will be the first city in the country and one of he first in Europe to be able to remotely monitor its streetlights.
All existing yellow/amber light sources in the city will be replaced with white-light. White light provides excellent colour rendering, giving the ability to distinguish colours and improve visibility at night. The first city in the country to remotely monitor its street lights? Certainly, other cities already have remote monitoring for a small proportion of their lighting. This includes Plymouth, which has had remote monitoring for a few years now. And what about the City of Westminster and their plans for remote monitoring? And what about the Surrey PFI, which contains a city called Guildford, and will use remote monitoring? Given that the Surrey PFI started a month earlier and that the Guildford replacements should be complete within about a year then surely Guildford would beat Southampton to the post? Southampton trying to big themselves up again.