It’s been a little while since I complained about lighting outside buildings (and inside for that matter) so I thought it was about time I had another moan.
The government has given their response to a petition on floodlighting I signed a while ago. The petition requested a ban on uneccessary floodlighting and asked the government to lead by example and reduce the lighting on their own buildings.
You can read the whole response at the 10 Downing Street e-petition site but the straight answer is that they do not intend to bring in a policy which bans floodlighting.
They say that “good practice” is to use various types of lower energy lighting but importantly they do not suggest making even this the law. Why not???
My favourite statement throughout their whole response is “Effects of reducing lighting levels or turning lights off vary from case to case”. Surely reducing lighting levels or turning lights off will reduce energy in every case!
They then state that safety should be a consideration (and balanced against financial and environmental cost) and I wouldn’t argue with that. So, let’s not necessarily have a blanket policy to ban floodlighting altogether but consider the use of it more carefully - I’m sure that alone would cause great reduction in energy waste and light pollution.
I strongly feel that this is an issue which shouldn’t be brushed off in the way it was in this government response. So, if you feel that light pollution needs to be tackled join me in signing a couple more petitions:
Save energy consumption by reducing streetlight usage
Switching off a light is one of the easiest things to do so why is it so difficult to make it happen?
