Climate change: Lord Deben says street lights not needed in rural areas
I have found the issue of dark skies in rural settings surprisingly, perhaps even un-nervably controversial. This story tells us:
Street lights should not be installed in rural areas where people could use a torch instead, an influential climate adviser said.
Lord Deben chairs the Climate Change Committee, which advises the government on emissions targets.
He also said councils should not allow housing developments where residents would commute by car.
Lord Deben said local authorities “must be looking at everything they do” to tackle climate change.
Giving evidence to Parliament’s Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, Lord Deben said: “The pressures to urbanise the countryside are largely antagonistic to dealing with climate change.”
He said street lighting in rural areas was unnecessary, adding: “When people move into the countryside you just have to say to them, ‘this is not the town, we do not have street lighting in this village, you have a torch, that’s just how we do it’.”
But Lord Deben, who was environment minister under John Major and Suffolk Coastal MP until 2010, said street lighting was important in towns where it can make people feel safer and more likely to walk.