The Street That Cut Everything

[Hypernova]

I am just watching this on BBC One and they have just had the council round to switch off all the streetlights (sodium BTW) on the road, it will be interesting to see how they cope without lights and what the response is

[shaunster]

Yes, lets see how unsafe they all are

[Earl]

Devolution shows that as time progresses our ability to survive in the natural environment diminishes aka, we all become a bunch of wooses (is that how its spelt?)

[Parus major]

Don't you know? All hoodies are pre installed with IR goggles.

[Hypernova]

I like how they are fly tipping and vandalising property under the cover of darkness NOT!!!

[chemtom24]

most if not all streetlights have a timer inside, almost exactly like those timer plugs you can plug into your socket and turn the outer rings to the time desired.

get yourself a lamppost key and voila.. tamper with the timing perhpas just set an annoying lamppost a few hours back, giving you a few more hours of darkness.

I worked for a sparks company putting up christmas decs one year.

[MikeWilson]

"From day one, the lack of lighting has brought trouble to the streets"

[MikeWilson]

Resident's solution:

Narration: "It's 10PM and we've arranged for some unwelcome visitors"

[MikeWilson]

...to remove some chavs in an Audi A3...

What a contrived situation.

[Hypernova]

Ad now they have bought in some high power work site lighting

The general tone from Nick Robinson is that being without street lighting is dangerous and immediately increases crime and the amount of "unfavourable" characters to hang around causing trouble. Isn't this what the CFDS studies disprove?

[MikeWilson]

Narrator: "Three hours later it's time for the grand switch on".

Female resident: [Hopefully this will make things [safer]

Let me guess. The show's producers now stop "arranging" for actors to annoy the residents.

They also "arranged" for 20 dogs to come and foul the streets for the residents to clean up.

This should be called "The documentary that contrived everything". It's a good premise, but how about making the cuts without contrived and forced examples.

A very poor polemic.

[MikeWilson]

I like how they are fly tipping and vandalising property under the cover of darkness NOT!!!

They are doing exactly that, as it happens.

The producers are intentionally vandalising the street, adding litter, introducing "antisocial behaviour" (it really wasn't that antisocial, they should have used real chavs rather than probably-paid actors).

Trash programming like this from a fairly respectable station from a fairly respectable presenter really gets my goat. Time to lodge a complaint with the BBC?

[Hypernova]

...Time to lodge a complaint with the BBC?

Great minds think alike I will submit a message of displeasure along with some study results from CFDS and see what their response is.

[MikeWilson]

Great minds think alike I will submit a message of displeasure along with some study results from CFDS and see what their response is.

Indeed

Complaints have already been lodged by "Friends of the Earth" and other green organisations (according to news articles) about the intentional and over the top dog fouling.

In my experience, when a dog lays a doggy-mine on a street it typically sits there until it's baked by the sun and washed away by the rain or unless someone flicks it into a hedge with a stick. There isn't anyone to bag these nutty offerings, at least around where I live. I expect this is typical, after all it's difficult to expect a council to locate each and every little poo and then dispatch a contractor to pick it up.

As for the chavs, it's also a stupid and contrived example. Antisocial behaviour across Hampshire and Surrey (and I'm sure many other counties) is dealt with by councils that aren't open to respond to antisocial behaviour complaints after hours like the one shown on the programe. The simple fact is, had those residents called on their council, they'd get an automated message. Had they called Environmental Health, they'd get an out of office number that redirects to a person who will take a note and get someone to call you back in the morning - long after the issue has gone. Police don't deal with these issues.

So that was a bad example, too.

And the lighting? Well, don't get me started. This is an astro forum, so I don't need to say any more!

3/3 examples that I've seen so far are epic journalism and editorial failures on par with what one would expect from the Daily Mail tabloid newspaper.

Do you happen to know if there a complaints email address (which would mean I could use these screenshots) or does one have to lodge a complaint via a web form of some description?

Have a good evening!

Mike

[Hypernova]

I have lodged a complaint with them now, hoping to receive a response fairly sharpish as they always seem to deal with complaints pretty quick.

[Orion_the_Hunter]

There isn't anyone to bag these nutty offerings, at least around where I live. I expect this is typical, after all it's difficult to expect a council to locate each and every little poo and then dispatch a contractor to pick it up.

Here in our French village there is a real problem with dog doof, the locals have an appaulingly accepting mentality towards it.

The town hall employ a dog poo man, he drives a moped with a 'poover' device on the back. (Picture to follow).

As for street lighting reducing anti social behaviour, the youth were I'm from are terrified of drinking Strongbow & smoking weed when there are streetlights on (sarcasm).

[MikeWilson]

Here in our French village there is a real problem with dog doof, the locals have an appaulingly accepting mentality towards it.

The town hall employ a dog poo man, he drives a moped with a 'poover' device on the back. (Picture to follow).

As for street lighting reducing anti social behaviour, the youth were I'm from are terrified of drinking Strongbow & smoking weed when there are streetlights on (sarcasm).

I'm quite intrigued by this 'poover' - lol.

As for chavs, without street lights the streets become less hospitable to loiterers since there's no lights for them to congregate around. Seems patently obvious to me - it's easy to demonstrate if you drive around any suburban village with a "Spar" village shop. They're usually lit outdoors at night and provide a convenient meeting point for the local ne'er de wells as it's lit and attracts them like moths.

Best,

Mike

[Multi-Coated]

most if not all streetlights have a timer inside, almost exactly like those timer plugs you can plug into your socket and turn the outer rings to the time desired.

get yourself a lamppost key and voila.. tamper with the timing perhpas just set an annoying lamppost a few hours back, giving you a few more hours of darkness.

I worked for a sparks company putting up christmas decs one year.

Most street lights, Sodium and high pressure sodium are controlled via photocells (small dome on top of housing unit) not time-clocks.The only thing you'll find in a column base is a cut out and death.( Bar the odd Xmas dec supply)

[chemtom24]

Most street lights, Sodium and high pressure sodium are controlled via photocells (small dome on top of housing unit) not time-clocks.The only thing you'll find in a column base is a cut out and death.( Bar the odd Xmas dec supply)

i guess it depends how new they are

[AndyH]

..............As for chavs, without street lights the streets become less hospitable to loiterers since there's no lights for them to congregate around. Seems patently obvious to me - it's easy to demonstrate if you drive around any suburban village with a "Spar" village shop. They're usually lit outdoors at night and provide a convenient meeting point for the local ne'er de wells as it's lit and attracts them like moths.......

Bang on. The little ne'er do wells, hate the dark. They are anti-vampires.

Andy.

[AndyH]

Could someone point this luddite in the right direcion, to where one registers complaints online?

Ta,

Andy.

[inksmithy]

Most street lights, Sodium and high pressure sodium are controlled via photocells (small dome on top of housing unit) not time-clocks.The only thing you'll find in a column base is a cut out and death.( Bar the odd Xmas dec supply)

Maybe what we need to do then is give the chavs the post key. Two birds, one stone.

Alan

[Hypernova]

Could someone point this luddite in the right direcion, to where one registers complaints online?

Ta,

Andy.

Here

[Rob L]

I missed the first five minutes so I probably didn't see the bit where they explained that this wasn't going to be an interesting social experiment to see the pro's and cons a small community would run into when managing their own council services.

But would actually be skewed to make it just about impossible for the residents to succeed with carefully placed unrealistic obstacles.

Not to mention the secondary goal of portraying the lack of street lighting to be the route to social breakdown and path to an apocalyptic future.

[inksmithy]

Metro had a story about the show: http://www.metro.co.uk/tv/reviews/863456-the-street-that-cut-everything-was-daft-and-fake

Looks like you guys weren't the only ones to think it was pap.

Alan