SOME Swanage residents are taking a dim view of upgrades to their street lighting, writes Sara Niven.
A shift from outdated orange sodium lamps to more cost-effective blue-intense white LED bulbs has been flagged up as light pollution and even a potential health risk, with claims the council is ignoring residents’ concerns and contravening its own lighting policy.
Dr Rider
“The luminaries the new bulbs are being installed into don’t restrict the light emission as they should, so intense white light known as ‘spill light’ goes everywhere,” says Dr Gavin Rider, a resident of Bon Accord Road, where the new lighting has been in place since the summer.
“This is recognised as an issue by the Institute of Lighting Professionals (ILP) and there is international guidance on how to prevent it.
“But Dorset County Council are instead creating it.”
Dr Rider, a physicist, says that in addition to the excessive light created, the bulbs are also being installed in environmental zones that are not in keeping with the council’s own lighting policy.
“They have classified this street as falling into E3 – a more urban area with greater amount of spill light allowed than E2, which I would see as far more appropriate for a residential part of Swanage like this.”
He has spent several months contacting Dorset County Council over his concerns and forwarding them numerous scientific reports and papers in support. These include findings about exposure to artificial light at night (ALAN) supressing melatonin levels in humans and being been linked to an increased risk of certain types of cancer and other conditions including depression and diabetes.
Dr Rider says he has not had any satisfactory answers and claims that following the council’s response to him making an official complaint, his emails are now being blocked.
Dr Rider’s neighbour, Paul Venn, a retired IT specialist, has a streetlamp just outside his house and says the light floods his upper floors to the point it is impossible to sleep.
“It is a horrible, intrusive light and the situation has been getting worse as the nights get darker.
“A representative from the contractor that installed the new bulbs came out and did a light reading which they inform us prove it falls within an accepted range, but it doesn’t tally with the readings Dr Rider and myself did using apps on our phones, which showed it is excessive.
“We have told the council about the health risks associated with this kind of blue light and are basically being completely ignored.”
A Dorset Council spokesperson said that the council was fully aware of the concerns raised by Dr Rider and Mr Venn, and had previously responded at length, adding: “There is no credible scientific evidence to suggest any legitimate health dangers around our approach to LED street lighting, despite the many conspiracy theories and misinformation campaigns found online, especially via social media.
“Our lights comply with British Standards and our own lighting policy, the latter of which is very similar to – and often better than – most other authorities nationally, and there is no danger to the public.
“We now consider the matter closed.”
I realise that this is “old news” by now, but the statement saying there is no danger to the public is incorrect. ICNIRP (the International Commission for Non-Ionising Radiation Protection), which has for decades pronounced the safety of LEDs, has recently issued a new recommendation relating to the health risk that I had complained to Dorset Council about. It says on its website, in an article dealing specifically with LEDs:
“Regarding disruption of the human circadian rhythm, we are still learning about this complex issue and ICNIRP is working
on a related Statement to be published in the near future. In the meantime, as a precautionary measure, ICNIRP
recommends that exposure in the evening or nighttime to light sources that are rich in blue light be avoided.”
They would not back-track on over a decade of statements about LED safety if there was not compelling evidence of the health risk that was already recognised by the American Medical Association in 2016.
Readers need to be aware that Dorset Council now recognises that the above press statement was unreasonably dismissive of concerns about health risk.
I have provided the Director for Public Health with a dossier of scientific research papers proving that the concerns expressed by medical professionals around the world are real.
When the Council were asked by me to retract the above statement and issue a corrective one, they instead asked the editor of the newspaper to remove the above statement from the record. This is a clear attempt by the Council to try and rewrite the history of this dispute about their street lighting, and to avoid having to acknowledge publicly that blue-rich LED lighting at night poses a risk to public health.
That is because if they acknowledge the fact, they will also have to acknowledge that the high-CCT street lighting that their PFI lighting contractor has already installed all over the county poses a risk to the public as well as to the natural environment.
Better quality LED lighting is available, as is currently installed on a short section of Bon Accord Road in Swanage, for “evaluation”. I believe the Council should adopt this alternative lighting and replace all the 4000K LED lighting in Dorset as soon as it is economically and practically possible to do so. Leaving this lighting in place perpetuates the risk to public health and continues to harm the nocturnal environment.
The above statement from Dorset Council says “Our lights comply with British Standards and our own lighting policy”. I challenged that claim but my complaint was rejected by the Council.
During the review of the lighting policy this year, Dorset Council sought advice from the Association of Public Service Excellence, an advisory body that passes-on best practice from other local authorities in the UK. They reviewed the old lighting policy and made a number of significant recommendations about how to improve it – almost all of which have been completely ignored. The new lighting policy is a joke, and you can read my response to it on ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/396036192_The_case_against_Dorset_Council's_street_lighting_policy
APSE also reviewed my complaint about the replacement street lights that were the subject of the above article. They say in their report to the Council:,
“With regard to the complaint noted above, the existing policy and specification do reference the relevant British Standards and Lighting Guides, but it is apparent that the replacement lighting installed adjacent Person A’s property does not meet these standards. It is therefore important to ensure that any future policy and specification is achievable in all applications and strictly adhered to”.
So, the above statement is proven to be FALSE, and the new lighting policy fails to ensure that the specifications for lighting are correctly followed by the PFI contractor. To say that this new policy is a well orchestrated exercise in deception and misinformation is about the best thing I could say about it.