MY COUNCIL IS NOT SO DIM

As some people know one of my hobbies is Astronomy. One of the banes of most Astronomers peering at the skies at night through a telescope is Light Pollution from the glare of the Sodium Lamp of Street lighting. I have, in the little lane at the bottom of my garden, a Street Lamp which at night lights up the garden in what appears to be orange daylight It's been there for 40 years, to be honest, but never really bothered me during my working life as I very rarely got chance to be in the garden at night. However, since I retired and done a lot more gardening etc that Sodium Street light has irritated me more and more as it's more soothing to sit in the evening with a glass of wine in the failing natural light of the Sunset than in the glare of a bright orange light. Okay, such lighting is good for deterring Burglars etc but it ain't good for peering at the skies. I'm also planning the placing of an Observatory into the Garden so it was even more pressing to get rid of the glare of the Street Light.
Anyway, while browsing through an Astronomy Forum I came across a post from a Lady who had the same problem and had written to her Council to ask them to put a shield of some sort on the offending Street Light to stop the light pollution into her property. Her Council wrote back saying that they were converting the Street Lights in her area from Sodium to LED lighting and that they would fit a shield on the lamp when they did so. Soooooooooo, although have one or two plans on how to reduce the glare of the Street Light from my side of the garden fence, I decided to e-mail, a couple of weeks ago, my Council requesting they shield the offending light. I filled out the appropriate form on their Council page which said that they would reply in 3 days and sent the e-mail............guess what? Nothing!! Well, at least until today when I drove home and found a Gentleman waiting on my doorstep.
He was clutching a clip board and some leaflets and as I walked up the path to meet him he said "I'm from the Council". Not thinking, and being Cynical, I thought "Oh, Yes, haven't seen a member of the Council for years and they only contact me when chasing for votes!!" Just as I was going to say something sarcastic he finished his introduction by saying "And I'm from the Street Lighting Department. I believe you have a problem with a Street Light, could you show me which one?."
I have to say that this Gentleman was genuinely interested and sympathetic throughout and having identified the Street Light on his map. Now I know our Council is already converting the Street Lights from Sodium to LED so I expected to be politely told either "Sorry, No" or that I would have to wait for months or years until they changed the lighting in my area. But no, he was nodding his head all the time and shaking my hand told me the shielding would be in place in the next two weeks. He also gave me his card and told me to ring him when the shield had been fitted to tell him how effective it was. If it wasn't as good as I wanted he would fit another design as an alternative.
And here's me with the usual cynical thoughts about Councils and mine has proved to be quite enlightening!!

 

I must admit I was quite taken aback and surprised as in all the years I have lived here I have never approached the Council in any matter. I've paid my Rates over the years grumbling about the cost of basically getting two bins emptied [one every other week!!] and not seeing anything else visibly for my money. So while this is just the one incident I have to confess I have changed my opinion of, at least, my Council.
While I admit I am, being an amateur Astronomer, biased about the subject of Light Pollution I do think we have to do something about it. I know my Council is not changing from Sodium Vapour Street Lighting to LED's just to get rid of light pollution but for monetary savings and maintenance costs, but hopefully if the lamps are more efficient in the way they distribute the light i.e. pointing it down into a smaller area it might be less light polluting. I didn't ask the Gentleman from the Council if they were contemplating switching off street lighting in any way to save energy etc but I'll have a little look around on their Web site and see if there's any mention of it.

 

An Astronomer's dream, noisette!!! Unfortunately for a lot of us in our "civilised" world light pollution has become accepted as "natural" and almost unnoticed. I live on the edge of my small Town and am only two hundred yards from the country fields but I'm still plagued with light pollution to the point where only the bright stars are visible with the eye. So I'm extremely jealous of you!!!

 

Why on earth would people think they won't be able to see anything?

They did it around here a while back and the lights are brighter and more focused on to pavement / road. It does make the fronts of houses darker but that was intended as people had long complained of light spillage (always liked that term for light lol). Most houses, here at least, have outside lights anyway which sort of negates anything the council achieved with their new streetlamps but hey...