Wednesday 8 January 2014

Artificial Lighting - Friend or Foe?

Rob Lockwood
 
Technical Director


What would we do without it?  In the right place and at the right time, artificial lighting has real benefits. It could be street lighting, security lighting, decorative lighting or advertising and can help improve safety, prevent crime and facilitate a lively night-time economy. However, the flipside is that, if it is not properly managed, it can also have a wide range of harmful effects. These harmful effects include pollution of our night skies, annoyance to neighbours, impacts on wildlife and also wasted energy.

Yesterday Defra published their progress report on the steps they and other Government departments have taken to address the issue of light pollution following the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP) 2009 report.  The report can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/269402/pb14108-artificial-light-progress-dec2013.pdf

As Technical & Policy Advisor to Defra (2008-2013), Temple are very proud to have played a key role in developing and evolving this area of government environmental policy and making key contributions to the publications outlined in the report.  During that time we also built strong working relationships with key stakeholders such as the Campaign to Protect Rural England, Campaign for Dark Skies and the Institution of Lighting Professionals. We hope these good relationships continue to bring improvements in the future.

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