Light Pollution - council result

[pduk]

Here in Sunny (well, cloudy mostly) Hertford I recently got my first telescope, a Skywatcher Skyliner 200P dobsonian. It's a lovely bit of kit.

Apart from the weather difficulties, the other main fly in the ointment has been my back garden. There is a very bright orange lamp right on the edge of the side of the garden, lighting up a public footpath that goes down the side of the property. It casts a lovely yellow glow all over the garden, and the back of the house, and for my initial few observation sessions the excitement of seeing things through the scope have been tempered with dismay because of the light.

Yesterday I thought I'd try talking to the council and found that Herts have a very decent reporting system for faults, where you can see a map of your location and click on offending items such as street lights. There is also an encouraging reporting category "Glare from street light". So I submitted it yesterday, mentioning both my astronomy problem and also that it casts light into the rear bedroom, and this morning got a response (paraphrasing):

We will look into fitting a rear shield on the column at the side of your back garden which I believe is xxxx Road.

However it will be several weeks before the work is carried out.

Encouraging? I am really pleased at a positive response, I was really expecting to get fobbed off.

Paul.

[Demonperformer]

Nice one.

I expected your mention of Astronomy would have put the mockers on it and am pleasantly surprised for you.

[Zul]

Nice

[Reggie]

That's a very encouraging response, I wonder if they would allow you to fit it yourself instead of waiting 3 weeks for them to come round and do it? I appreciate that the council have other pressing things to do of course

[ChrisThePuma]

Ooh - ive just requested similar in my council web site - see what happens

[StarryEyes]

Result, hope it gets sorted for you soon

[Tinker1947]

Good luck..

[Simms]

I did this about 6 months ago and they did put a backshield on it, its helped a little bit - not great, but at least they made the effort. (Essex County Council)

[paul schofield]

Great job, I know how you feel. The street light next to my rear garden stopped working about 4 months back & has not been fixed. But on the flip side 2 doors down from me, new neighbours seem to be addicted to security lighting. Rough with the smooth I suppose. I bet the council would not do anything about that.

[todd8137]

ligt pol is the same pollution as car exhaust fumes or rubbish be in dumped in a river ,since you mention your scope you will be hard pressed to get the council to do much it took me 13 weeks ,but i got three sorted out but mentioning telescopes ruins things

[paul schofield]

I think mentioning glare may be taken a bit more seriously than telescopes and astronomy. We will see.

[pduk]

And here's an update! The council have just been (I work from home and heard a commotion outside the back garden). They've spray-painted the side of the lamp facing our house, and put a screen on the back of it. This photo isn't quite from where I have the scope, it's normally further up the garden so more of that backplate will cover the light.

This looks like it should really help, so it's three cheers for Herts County Council from me!

Paul.

[pastiche]

Thats what I call a result!!

Congratulations.

[Ags]

The local council here in Holland responded quickly to my problem with a streetlight and set up a screen that cuts the light by around 50%, so I'm pretty pleased with them too.