Kielder dark sky status

[neilm]

Couldn't see this posted anywhere else, this is from last Thursdays (24/05) Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/24/kielder-forest-dark-skies-preserve?INTCMP=SRCH

Cheers

Neil

[scarp15]

Great incentive especially at a local level, just need to influence the neighbourhood county - Tyneside local authority to get on board, then there will not be a wiff of any distant skyglow.

[Dixie]

That's a thought Ian. If we get a profusion of dark skies areas in the UK perhaps it will influence urban authorities to look at their own skyglow. Find it hard to believe there's not massive scope to cut energy costs here and give us the stars back.

Richard

[SteveNickolls]

Great news. The more positive news exposure this gets the more chance we have of getting darker skies nationally. In Notts we have a county council committed to switching off street lights or dimming them but nothing yet from the City council. The county estimate that at the end of their four year programme to reduce lighting across the county electricity usage will be reduced by over 10 million kWh per year which is about 25 percent of the 2009/10 usage. This will save about £1.25m per yearat 2010/11 electricity prices. Savings in CO2 emissions will be about 5,800 tonnes per year, saving a further £70,000 on the purchase of carbon allowances. Our area will have lights turned off/dimmed starting October this year and I am looking forward to seeing how dark the nights sky becomes. Even thought of buying a meter to monitor lighting levels.

[scarp15]

I believe that the Kielder dark sky status is to be featured on Fridays 'You and Yours' Radio 4 between 12 and 1pm

[Dixie]

A key selling point about this dark sky bid is that Kielder and Northumberland National Park have joined together to create a much larger area of protected night sky - I think that's a world first.

Richard