Switching streetlights off late at night, or not...

[Carole]

Done

[Rick]

I suppose it is a sign of the times that 6 or more of the 13 questions in the consultation document are related to gender, age, race, sexual orientation, religion and disability.

Five of which they should not be asking, because they're utterly irrlevant. Only disability could have a bearing on lighting matters, and even then mainly only if it's a visual disability.

Well, I suppose it might be possible to cook up a religeon that demands True Darkness at night and regards artificial lights as Abomination, or something...   

Ho hum. At least there's a "None of your business" answer...

[Simon E]

Done

[Fay]

cant believe they had white: irish traveller on there!!  I just put that except for disability all the others were totally irrelevant!!

[ApophisAstros]

should that be consultation on LED lights , mark?...lol
Roger

[JonC]

Just spotted this
http://consultations.kent.gov.uk/consult.ti/streetlighting/consultationHome

One option is to go back to all night lighting once LEDs have been installed.

[MarkS]

Just spotted this
http://consultations.kent.gov.uk/consult.ti/streetlighting/consultationHome

One option is to go back to all night lighting once LEDs have been installed.

I fear that is exactly what they will do.  It is more difficult to use energy saving as an argument for switch-off when they are using LEDs.

I will be closely monitoring my sky quality as the switch-over begins - looking at overall brightness and spectral balance of the light pollution.  I really hope they use designs with no upwards and sideways spillage - it's something I mentioned in my submission. 

I recently went along the A20 near Sidcup in daylight and at the Fiveways junctions they had left their new LED lights illuminated for some reason.  I found them dazzling even in broad daylight - what on earth are they like at night? Maybe it's just my old eyes In any case, dazzle and glare is something else I mentioned in my submission.

Mark

[Carole]

The other evening I was driving my son and partner in the early hours from Crockenhill to Farnborough Hospital and they were complaining about the street lights being turned off after midnight saying they can't see where they are going and why do they do it? 

Apart from saying it was to save money I decided not to put a case forward and cause any argument since she was in labour at the time!!!!  But it's interesting to get the perspective of some-one not interested in Astronomy.

Carole

[Rick]

I found them dazzling even in broad daylight - what on earth are they like at night? Maybe it's just my old eyes

They're intrinsiclally that much brighter, at least in terms of light per unit area of emitter, than any of the previous street-lighting solutions. It ought to be possible to direct that light better, but so far I've seen far more poorly installed LED streetlights than well-installed ones. Far too often you can see the LEDs directly from twice as far away as the lamp concerned needs to illuminate.

[Carole]

I thought some-one said that the brightness can be turned down, is that not the case?

Carole

[Rick]

In theory they are a bit more adjustable than old lights. In practice, they seem to be installed at default settings, and never adjusted, as some of the horrors around orpington and Locksbottom illustrate...

[MarkS]

The consultation on Kent streetlighting showed 63% of respondents preferred all-night lighting.

Hence all street lights will be switched back on permanently once they have been converted to LED.  Ashford is in phase 1 (March-July 2016) so I'm going to find out pretty quickly what is the effect of LED streetlighting.

Does anyone want to buy some secondhand (useless) light pollution filters?   

Full results of the consultation are here:
https://democracy.kent.gov.uk/documents/s62218/

Mark

[Carole]

Bummer. 

Does anyone want to buy some secondhand (useless) light pollution filters?   

Got some of my own.

Carole

[The Thing]

Double bummer. That's why I haven't been to complain about my local streetlights, I would rather have a filterable problem than a lovely 'white' but better aimed LED replacement (bound to happen sometime though).
+
Just looked LED Streetlights on WikiPedia and it appears the emitted spectrum changes with time as the phosphorescent coating degrades. Nightmare!

[Fay]

Not only the weather against us!!!!!!