Lighting professionals will be urged to redouble their efforts to tackle light pollution and obtrusive light in urban areas at an ILP event next month.
ILP Durham is holding a technical meeting on 21 November where Cumbria dark skies officer Jack Ellerby will urge the profession to ‘think outside the boundaries’ when it comes to light pollution.
Jack will argue that, while it is only right to focus on preserving dark skies in rural areas, the issue of urban dark skies also needs to be addressed.
‘In many ways it is a bigger priority to get your lighting right in urban centres than it is in the sticks. We need to do it right everywhere, obviously, but it needs to be an equal priority,’ he will tell members.
Jack in his presentation will argue that he’d like to see the good practice that already exists in many areas of lighting – especially road and footway lighting – and move that into the private commercial, industrial and residential lighting space.
Rethink on standards
He will also call for the profession, including the ILP, to come together to reconsider or rethink the standards and to look at how environmental zones are defined and applied.
‘I’d also like to see lighting designers think more outside the current professional boundaries, to bring in ecological perspectives, urban planners, landscape designers and so on to consider lighting more holistically and take a whole-settlement approach,’ Jack will say.
‘I know it will be a challenge. But if lighting bodies, including the ILP, SLL and LIA can come together with wider perspectives to think about the standards and the way they’re applied a bit differently, then I think we can achieve better outcomes than currently being delivered,’ he will add.
The event is being held from 6pm at Thorn Lighting in Spennymoor, and members can register at https://theilp.org.uk/event/ilp-durham-technical-meeting-no-3-thinking-outside-the-boundaries/
Look out for an article by Jack Ellerby based on his presentation in the November/December of Lighting Journal.
