Tesco

Al­though I have not fol­lowed the re­develope­ment of the Tesco store in Lich­field, I have be­come aware the con­tro­ver­sty that it is caus­ing in the community.

I may be du­plic­at­ing the is­sue, how­ever I be­lieve that there will be ser­i­ous im­plic­a­tions with re­spect to light pol­lu­tion in the area, es­pe­cially to res­id­ents in the in­m­me­di­ate vi­cin­ity. It will have a ser­i­ous im­pact and be det­ri­mental to the health and the en­joy­ment of their property

The Clean Neigh­bour­hoods and En­vir­on­ment Act 2005 now makes light nuis­ance sub­ject to the same crim­inal law as noise and smells. It ap­plies to “ar­ti­fi­cial light emit­ted from premises so as to be pre­ju­di­cial to health or a nuisance”.

For more in­form­a­tion, please see: -

Clean Neigh­bour­hoods and En­vir­on­ment Act 2005 web-page.

For as­tro­nomers: please see the article: -

“Light pol­lu­tion now sub­ject to the crim­inal law of stat­utory nuis­ance” that ap­peared in the Brit­ish As­tro­nom­ical Journal.

In­tro­duc­tion

Light pol­lu­tion or nuis­ance, in­volves sev­eral as­so­ci­ated prob­lems: light nuis­ance (the un­wel­come in­tru­sion of light from nearby premises, es­pe­cially into bed­rooms), sky-glow (dam­age to the night sky en­vir­on­ment above), and glare, which causes dis­com­fort and may be a haz­ard to road users and pedestrians.

Un­til April 2006, vic­tims of light re­lated nuis­ance have one ac­tion open to them; they may take a civil ac­tion in private nuis­ance out against the of­fender, where they will have to prove the ex­ist­ence of the nuis­ance (usu­ally defined as an ad­verse state of af­fairs in­ter­fer­ing with an in­di­vidu­als use and en­joy­ment of his/her prop­erty). Such ac­tions have been suc­cess­ful, e.g. Bon­wick vs. Brighton and Hove Coun­cil (2000) and the more re­cent Ba­con case (2004). After April 2006, all vic­tims may com­plain to their local En­vir­on­mental Health Of­fice (at their local coun­cil), or take an ac­tion them­selves in the Magistrate’s Court; for more on the new law see the: -

Journal of the Brit­ish As­tro­nom­ical Association.

In the case of new de­vel­op­ments, the best method of deal­ing with light pol­lu­tion is at the plan­ning stage, pre-empting any light waste by in­flu­en­cing the design of light­ing schemes via the plan­ning de­part­ment of your local coun­cil and by aim­ing at the in­ser­tion of light­ing clauses in your council’s local plan.

Courses of action

1. If you are in a dis­pute in­volving light­ing, you should take plenty of notes. You should care­fully re­cord all the in­stances when the of­fend­ing light­ing is caus­ing a nuis­ance (e.g. the light has been on for over an hour for 15 nights within the last month.)
2. Ap­proach the of­fender in a dip­lo­matic, friendly man­ner. This suc­ceeds in the ma­jor­ity of cases, when ad­just­ment of the lamp or of tim­ings will some­times be all that is needed. Of­fend­ers of­ten do not real­ise that they are caus­ing a prob­lem. Be po­lite. It has been es­tim­ated that nearly 70% of cases are re­solved in this way.
3. If a po­lite ap­proach fails, con­tact your coun­cils En­vir­on­mental Health Of­ficer, who may be will­ing to mediate.
4. Be aware of pro­pos­als for light­ing loc­ally, and make sure that the Plan­ning Of­ficer is act­ing pos­it­ively on this as­pect of developments.
5. Me­di­ation: many areas have me­di­ation ser­vices, which may prove quicker and cheaper than go­ing to law. Ask your local au­thor­ity about this, or con­tact Me­di­ation UK, Al­ex­an­der House, Tele­phone Av­enue, Bris­tol BS1 4BS, Tel: 0117 904 6661, e-mail: mediationuk@mediationuk.org.uk
6. If all else fails, you could sue the of­fender. You will be ex­pec­ted to use the small claims court in the county court if your claim is for less than £5000 in com­pens­a­tion. Here there sys­tem puts com­plain­ant and de­fend­ant to­gether without the use of so­li­cit­ors and bar­ris­ters, so keep­ing the costs down and the pro­ced­ure less formal. It is re­com­men­ded that this is a last re­sort, but full in­form­a­tion about the pro­ced­ure and the ne­ces­sary forms are avail­able at http://www.courtservice.gov.uk

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