I have been an amateur astronomer for 30 years. During that time, light pollution has steadily worsened in this country. I am dedicated to my hobby, so much so, that in the last 20 years I and my family have moved from SE London to Kent to Norfolk to escape the exponential growth in light pollution.

IMPACT OF LIGHT POLLUTION ON UK ASTRONOMY

  I am of the opinion that UK visual Astronomy has been killed by light pollution. The professional telescopes left years ago, and a lot of amateur astronomers have either given up, or moved abroad. As for anyone just looking up and seeing the Milky Way, unless one lives on a Scottish Isle, forget it.

  In the last few years, the effect of light pollution of so-called "security" lighting, both domestic and industrial, combined with poorly designed sports lighting has caused the night sky to be obliterated for most people. I have spent hundreds of hours of my time persuading people to adjust or remove their bad lighting so as not to negate my investment in thousands of pounds of astronomical/scientific equipment. I've never had a refusal, but the scale of what I'm up against is now overwhelming. It only takes one cheap B&Q security light to light up the sky and the surrounding area to resemble Colditz, and to render my hobby useless. Not to mention trying to sleep when one's bedroom is lit up from a source over which one has no legal control.

  This not only affects Astronomers and other humans, as where I live in rural Norfolk, I have often heard birds calling in the middle of the night in the vicinity of blindingly bright industrial estates and sports pitches.

PLANNING GUIDELINES

  I have had experience of this. Current guidelines are just that—guidelines. When my village street lighting (six fittings total) was to be replaced due to old age, I made my case to the Parish Council, backed up by information on planning guidelines and good lighting practice, so that the new lights would be efficient, and would not cause light pollution. My reasoned arguments were totally ignored by the Council, the local Electricity Co, and the Highways authority. We ended up with poorly designed fittings, that were only installed, as they were cheap. When I pointed out that my house was more brightly lit by them than the road, I was told that to shield my house was not possible without messing up the road illumination. In my reply to this I stated that the conclusion to the correspondence was that the design of the lights was seriously flawed. No reply.

  As for the enforcement of planning guidelines, I believe that we are seeing definite progress with respect to street lighting. Full cut-off fittings are much more in evidence in new installations. However, replacement of existing worn out fittings often appear to be just that, not improvement by substituting modern shielded units.

  No amount of planning guidelines can protect against the subsequent additions of ad-hoc floodlights and "security" lights. We need light pollution law.

LEGALLY ENFORCEABLE REGULATORY CONTROLS AND THE DESIGN OF LIGHTING

  I wish to treat these two subjects as one. It is no use having legal controls if the hardware does not exist to make compliance practicable. I suggest that a simple legal requirement should be met where an owner of light fittings should be responsible for not allowing any of the light generated to illuminate any land beyond his boundary, including not allowing any light to escape above the horizontal.

  That is all that is needed, along with well-designed light fittings to allow this constraint to be met.

  We already have laws on the books for noise pollution. It is very difficult to stop sound spreading beyond a defined boundary. By contrast, preventing light pollution is simple.

  I would also suggest that the committee looks into the feasibility of switching off unnecessary street lighting at night, and decommissioning street lighting where appropriate. We are subject to a barrage of COIs telling us to save energy. The amount of energy and light wasted by street lighting that is not needed is colossal, and far outweighs any savings that can be made by individuals in other ways.

April 2003