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Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Stop the lights, Bunny.

I've heard some nonsense in my time but this is really of the biscuit taking variety. Reported by the Beeb yesterday a council in Wales is switching off street lights. It's for the environment don't you know. Seriously. Just as an aside are the savings of 250K from the council budget.

Street lighting along with sewage, the police, fresh drinking water and the town crier (an early version of a mobile RSS feed, ask your granny) was one of the most basic services that local city authorities undertook to provide in the pre-Victorian era. Even the bloody Romans provided street lighting.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Don't know Dan, I can't help thinking that we may have overdone the street lighting thing. Anyway in the new frugal world we could all travel in the dark with faming bullreeds.

Unknown said...

that should read "flaming bullreads"

Unknown said...

Oh FFS! "flaming bullreeds"

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

I agree that we've gone overboard on lighting but the places affect in Powys were urban estates and involved 9,000 out of a total of 14,000 street lights. I very strongly think we should be making moves to reduce light pollution but leaving the elderly trapped in their homes after 5pm in the winter is not the way to do.

Eoin Brazil said...

Another half cocked attempt when we can be both eco-friendly and reduce light pollution already using something like lunar-resonant streetlights. I've already had my rant on this last year so I'll leave it be.