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Mainly for people living in Hants.
I see Hampshire County Council has launched a public consultation which includes turning off the streetlights for 2 hours. Only 9 days left to respond…..
Jeremy
I queried what was happening in Oxfordshire.
Many thanks for your enquiry, our current lighting policy is to use 3000K colour temperature LED’s on residential roads and 4000K on traffic routes (which is currently being reviewed as part of this project). Our policy is to dim street lights on residential roads by 50% light output from 22:00pm to 06:00am and traffic route to 75% light output from 00:00am to 06:00am.
This is in Banbury. Not possible to turn lights off because I live in suburban environment.
Northumberland County Council…
5700K streetlights (of which four ring my house each within 25 yards).
4000K for the National Park (and Dark Skies Park). Genius.
You should see Filey where we were on holiday for a few days last week. They have fitted all the lamps and strings of lights along the prom seen here
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/833144
with the bluest LED light bulbs I have ever seen. (Hundreds of them. They looked almost purple, like mercury discharge lamps. A shame as just off the front they have a few warm white LEDs ) We stayed in a hotel on the front and the rooms were lit with this eerie light and the seagulls seemed to be awake all night.
Robin
Hi Tony, low CCT seemingly comes with a price in terms of efficiency, hence the cash pressure is to install higher CCT lamps. The reduction in efficiency in moving to 3000K is said to be worth 15% or so. I haven’t studied this in detail and can’t yet confirm that % number, but it would explain the decisions being taken in this respect. Gloucestershire is the same; I’ve found out they installed 4000K as an optimum solution weighing efficiency against aesthetics.
Finally had a response from the famously flaky and halfhearted West Berkshire council.
“the majority of LED street lights installed in West Berkshire have a colour temperature of 5000K. Dimming takes place between Midnight and 05:30 and the level of dimming depends on the location and road type, but in general the reduction is around 25%.”
I have to say that I’ve seen no evidence of dimming but at only 25% I doubt I’d notice.
None. Worryingly so.
Two ‘holding’ letters dated two weeks apart saying “we’re looking into this”. Wouldn’t you think they’d have known and/or had a sock response ready?
Anyway, tired of waiting so I’ve sent the same bundle to my MP. Nothing so far but what would you expect at the moment.
Two weeks and then I’ll send to the local TV/Press.
T
Quite a lengthy explanation (attached) summarised as:
Probably a ‘weak’ link between LED Light at Night (LAN) and health issues.
Quite a lot of ‘distraction’ in the reply using night-shift work and other blue sources to deflect LED street light scrutiny. (And because there’s some truth in that assertion it lends a certain credibility to the stance that LED is no worse or does not add significantly to the problem).
A reasonably good (it has to be said) assessment of the AMA reports but one that is used to cast doubt on the findings and thus allow them to be ignored.
I’ll ask for the ‘newer AMA report’ that they reference in their reply.
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