Changing the lights at a police building in Carmarthenshire is to cost nearly £500,000 – a figure described as “strikingly large” at a public meeting

The contract for the new lighting system at Dyfed-Powys Police’s strategic command centre at Llangunnor, Carmarthen, was approved by Police and Crime Commissioner Dafydd Llywelyn.

Mr Llywelyn spoke about it when asked at a meeting of the Dyfed-Powys ‘police and crime panel’- which scrutinises his role, on May 20.

Panel vice-chairman, Cllr Keith Evans, said he was “a bit disturbed” looking at the lighting cost, which was detailed in a report, and asked Mr Llywelyn if he could clarify his role in confirming the expenditure.

The report said the lighting system at the strategic command centre, which was built 15 years ago and – according to the architects involved – cost £6.4m and was hard to maintain due to the redundancy of the fittings and the unavailability of parts.

It is to be replaced with LED lighting and controls which have heat-mapping technology, meaning they can dim when people aren’t around and save energy. External lights will also be replaced.

The report said that following an evaluation process Dyfed-Powys Police’s estates department recommended a £483,110 contract should be awarded to Swansea-based John Weaver (Contractors) Ltd along with a 15% contingency, if required, to an overall value of £555,576.

“This is based on financial cost evaluation, contract terms, route to market and timely delivery of the works with escalating material costs,” said the report.

Mr Llywelyn then approved the contract. He told the panel that he and his chief finance officer reviewed proposed expenditure by the force above a certain threshold.

The Plaid Cymru commissioner said everything was done within governance frameworks and, in answer to a point raised by Cllr Evans, said there was a degree of “rubber-stamping” by him in some instances.

He added that the strategic command centre was, in estate terms, owned by the commissioner while its function was the chief constable’s responsibility. Mr Llywelyn said modernising the lighting system did come “at a significant cost”.

The report listed various other spending decisions made by Mr Llywelyn in recent months, including £27,065 for a new “fuming cabinet” for the force’s fingerprint development unit. These cabinets effectively develop prints on crime scene exhibits, said the report.

Lay panel chairman Professor Ian Roffe said the strategic command centre was, in his view, the best value public building ever built in Wales – until he saw the lighting replacement cost. “I thought it was strikingly large,” he said.

It was announced at the end of last year, that Police and Crime Commissioners are to be scrapped across England and Wales in a bid to save £100m.

Instead, they will be replaced by either an elected mayor or revert to the previous system of having a police committee when the current commissioner terms come to an end in 2028.

The Government’s Policing Minister Sarah Jones, said the model had 'not delivered what it was set up to achieve'.