Light intrusion

[wookie1965]

I am looking for advice I have spoken to the council about this light they came and supposedly put a shield on it.

The gentleman man was rather offhand with me saying street lights are excempt from nuisance laws.

My problem is I have this light really shinning very brightly into my yard and anything to the south I cannot view.

 

[johninderby]

Does it shine into a bedroom window? If so it is indeed a nuisance  and the council will have to do something about it.

[wookie1965]

The light does intrude to the bedroom but the man from the council said he has been out and it does not fall on the second story of the house so nothing needs doing.

[Carbon Brush]

By my understanding of the situation, excess light anywhere into your property is a nuisance, or pollution.

Clearly the 'gentleman from the council' is ill informed as any of their street lighting is subject to the same nuisance laws as any ill positioned floodlights you or I might use.
OK there are a few eceptions on sports centres, etc. But essentially they are not above the law.

I would ask to speak to his supervisor in the first instance. Then escalate to Environmental Health - the department responsible for acting on pollution.
If you can reasonably claim to be suffering as a result of the pollution they must act on this.

Give your local councillor some earache about this and point out that the light in your garden costs money.
Your money and his money (he does presumably pay council tax) to maintain.

We are all being asked by knowledgable people, and by central government, to avoid wasting electricity.
Whether to reduce CO2 emissions or just cash.

By illuminating your garden the council is throwing away money as well as doing harm.

The easy way to get the grumpy complainiant to shut up is to fit a metal plate to the light fitting.
A piece of steel or ali and a couple of brackets. No advanced manufacturing or clever mathematics inolved.

Sorry for the rant but the 'plant street lght until it is 24/7 daylight' get me really annoyed.

David.

 

[RT65CB-SWL]

32 minutes ago, wookie1965 said:

The light does intrude to the bedroom but the man from the council said he has been out and it does not fall on the second story of the house so nothing needs doing.

The guy is wrong. Light trespass is a nuisance. Tell him it is interfering with your sleep pattern, take photos of the light pollution from inside the bedroom.

Maybe worth having a look at the CfDS site and what advice they have to offer.

[wookie1965]

I was going take pictures inside the bedroom I am hoping to attach that to the complaint I have put in. I have had to buy a black out blind to darken the room.

[Carbon Brush]

Why not contact your councillor, and the department who sent the gentleman and ask for their blackout blind advice.

Starting along the lines of:

Do you supply and fit? Or do I get it sorted and bill you?

There are precendents.

Many years ago my local planning dept allowed a clay pigeon shooting ground near houses. Restricted use of course. Unlimited users for 72 hours per week!
Needless to say the complaints flooded into Environmental Health as soon as it started operating.

After inter-departmental arguing, the planning people, under pressure from environmental health, funded secondary glazing at my work place, and some nearby houses.
A little later, the environmental health team took the shooting site operator to court requiring him to stop the nuisance. The judge agreed and the site was closed.

What I am getting at is the common sense approach (like fit a directional light) does not seem to be present in the minds of those involved.
There are fortunately procedures that will remove the nuisance at no cost to the individual.

But if the complainant can be fobbed off???

I'm sure there have been threads some years back on here about councils fitting light shields. Hopefully someone will be along with a pointer?

[John]

23 minutes ago, wookie1965 said:

I was going take pictures inside the bedroom I am hoping to attach that to the complaint I have put in. I have had to buy a black out blind to darken the room.

I had a similar situation with a light from a local school. I e.mailed them (with photos attached as evidence) and copied my e.mail to my local councillor. My councillor took an interest as did the school eventually and the light has now been effectively shielded. You need to keep the pressure up and copy your local councillor in on communications so that the council can see that it is not just you who they are accountable to.

 

[johninderby]

As mentioned in some of the above posts many council employees are clueless about the laws and regulations pertaining to their jobs. They just seem to make it up as they go along so just be stubborn and go over their head and find someone who actually knows the rules. 

[RT65CB-SWL]

Link to CfDS here —-> http://www.britastro.org/dark-skies/index.php

[John]

As someone who used to work in government for many years (central rather than local in my case) I can say that one of the first things we looked at in a communication is who else it has been copied to

 

[jock1958]

On 11/02/2019 at 05:48, jock1958 said:

After complaining about the bright  street light shining through my window my council in Wales promptly replaced it with this not so bright light - notice the black pull down deflector which helps divert light to the ground.

Picture at bottom is original light fitting.

I contacted the local Council (Street Lighting Dept) about this very issue and a very helpful guy came out, turns out he was the head of the department, he asked me what the problem was and within a week the light was swapped over for a considerably less powerful version. Copy of my post above from February this year.

[SteveNickolls]

That gentleman man was no gentleman. Take the matter further, his boss, Environmental Health, your ward councillor(s) and Chief Executive. As regards the councillors some councils across the country are having elections in May and looking for votes. Good luck.

Cheers,
Steve

[wookie1965]

3 hours ago, Carbon Brush said:

Why not contact your councillor, and the department who sent the gentleman and ask for their blackout blind advice.

Starting along the lines of:

Do you supply and fit? Or do I get it sorted and bill you?

There are precendents.

Many years ago my local planning dept allowed a clay pigeon shooting ground near houses. Restricted use of course. Unlimited users for 72 hours per week!
Needless to say the complaints flooded into Environmental Health as soon as it started operating.

After inter-departmental arguing, the planning people, under pressure from environmental health, funded secondary glazing at my work place, and some nearby houses.
A little later, the environmental health team took the shooting site operator to court requiring him to stop the nuisance. The judge agreed and the site was closed.

What I am getting at is the common sense approach (like fit a directional light) does not seem to be present in the minds of those involved.
There are fortunately procedures that will remove the nuisance at no cost to the individual.

But if the complainant can be fobbed off???

I'm sure there have been threads some years back on here about councils fitting light shields. Hopefully someone will be along with a pointer?

This light has supposedly been fitted with a light shield.

[wookie1965]

3 hours ago, John said:

I had a similar situation with a light from a local school. I e.mailed them (with photos attached as evidence) and copied my e.mail to my local councillor. My councillor took an interest as did the school eventually and the light has now been effectively shielded. You need to keep the pressure up and copy your local councillor in on communications so that the council can see that it is not just you who they are accountable to.

 

My council is very sneaky made me sign up just so I can make a complaint and dont give out any email addresses for any departments.

https://www.sthelens.gov.uk/council/

[SteveNickolls]

38 minutes ago, wookie1965 said:

My council is very sneaky made me sign up just so I can make a complaint and dont give out any email addresses for any departments.

As someone who worked in Env. Health all their working life a council will want to deal with all complaints properly and be able to get back in touch with you to discuss matters, advise on progress and put closure in place at the end, hence the need to 'sign up'. This is can in some circumstances be actually better than speaking to 'someone' on the telephone, at least your actions are all in the written form as evidence, especially if delays etc. arise. If your complaint is not acted upon there are lots of internal ways of raising the matter further-through your ward councillors, the Chief Executive and ultimately in certain cases of maladmiistration, the Ombudsman. In these days of less central Government funding to councils many authorities now have rationalised complaint taking and arrange that complaints go through one conduit, something akin to a customer services department which then internally routes the complaint to the department(s) responsible for actioning the matter. This might seem blocking but in times of staff shortages is the best they can organise during times of austerity. In some cases the departments may have to liaise together to agree a solution. Hope this explanation helps and somewhat reassures.

Good luck resolving your problem.

Cheers,
Steve

[wookie1965]

Thank you all for your help I will keep you appraised of the situation.

[jock1958]

35 minutes ago, wookie1965 said:

Thank you all for your help I will keep you appraised of the situation.

Just had a look at my original email response from my council and it was from the manager of the Highways Direct Services who are responsible for street lighting amongst other things.

I emailed them with the issue I had and was given a ticket number (job number) the following week the light was replaced including the adjustable shade.

Cant understand why they are making things difficult for you as I was tod my replacement light uses less power and is more energy efficient. 

 

 

 

[wookie1965]

This is through and into my bedroom.  The first two are of the light shining on the wall does not look bright on these but I am only taking them with a phone.

[John]

That last one is pretty damming. You just have to keep up the pressure from as many angles as you can.

 

[wookie1965]

Just had chance take pictures of the offending light as you can see in the second picture the screen is fitted but is not doing anything.

[Carbon Brush]

Call that a screen or shield? Looks to me more like a bit of leftover biscuit tin lid.

The lighting folks need to attend some gcse physics classes. Simple sketches with ruler on a page will explain how ineffective  their screen will be. Ask them to get their children to calculate or estimate how to do the job.

Keep at 'em.

[wookie1965]

Well heard back as the light does not fall on the upper story of the house they have said they do not need to do anything else.

Street lighting does not come under nuisance laws as the know it all man shouted me down with.

wrote to 2 local councillors and my MP not one has had the decency to reply.

I am now at the end of my tether all I can do is set up behind my shed look north and east that's it.

[SIDO]

If you can get even just one of your neighbor's (or more) on board this might get them to a higher level of biscuit tin craftsmanship, the power of multiples may yield to a more concerned stanse on their behalf ?

       Best of Luck...

                                Freddie...

 

 

[JamesF]

In what sense does the light "not fall on the upper storey of the house"?  Being directly visible from your bedroom surely has to be pretty tricky unless it does so?

James