That leaflet will be fun to read. Wonder if they're still asserting there are no known issues. That would be misleading as the state of play on this is complex and the research is still at an early stage. There’s a growing amount of evidence that high levels of artificial light at night (ALAN) is not good from either an environmental or public health perspective and that using high CCT LED lights such as the ones deployed in Hounslow, is highly questionable. It’s thought that as the quality of the light these LEDs produce has the same high blue spectrum wavelengths as daylight, they are triggering the brain and associated hormonal systems to think it is daytime, even though it is the middle of the night. This is not good and various studies have correlated this to rates of certain types of cancer, diabetes and obesity. But let’s be clear, the jury is still out on both the ecological and human health perspective. The data on the ecological damage is a lot more clear-cut, but on the human health side there are many unanswered questions. There are however enough warning signs to make use all very concerned. One expert on the subject has liked this to what we knew about cigarette smoke in the 1950s. There’s sufficient concern on this topic that a series of major research projects on the subject have been put in place in Germany with Berlin and Leipzig Universities looking at all aspects of artificial light at night, covering socio-political issues, right through to the human health and ecological impacts. http://www.verlustdernacht.de/about-us.html Whether these studies confirm the finding of recent research at Oxford and Haifa universities remains to be seen. The lighting manufacturers are certainly becoming aware of the potential issues and are now bringing online a new next generation set of street lighting with lower CCT to hopefully avoid any future problems. Their marketing is in cases explicitly selling these as better ones to use from an ecological and circadian rhythm perspective.  See for example: http://www.spauldinglighting.com/content/products/literature/literature_files/exo_filtered_optics_brochure_cl1_cl1s.pdf With the potential risks in mind, I have asked LBH to look at the scientific research and to stop deploying the high CCT lights in residential areas until we know more about any ecological damage and health risks. They do have a simple option of using ones with a lower CCT. Phillips, the manufacturers of the ones they are installing do offer alternatives and as we have seen, so do their competitors. Sadly this has fallen on deaf ears. Now maybe the concerns I’ve raised are totally unfounded and there are no issues. Maybe they are valid and we will have a major health scandal emerging in the next few years and some very large legal cases for damages. In the meantime, it does seem sensible to me to simply use better streetlights until we know more.

Entire Thread

Topic	Date Posted	Posted By
We are Changing your Street Lights	12/09/14 10:58:00	Paul Allen
Re:We are Changing your Street Lights	12/09/14 12:04:00	Russell Pearson
Reptilians occupying the Civic Centre	12/09/14 12:42:00	Michael Brown
We are Changing your Street Lights	12/09/14 16:15:00	Paul Allen

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