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When I
first moved to my current residence in 1987, one of my principle reasons to
move there was its location. The telescope in my garden had an aspect
almost clear of light pollution, with dark skies looking south, there was no
serious lighting in that direction for miles. It was as good an observing
location as you could find in south east England.
In 1993,
Eynsford Parish council decided to build a car park on green belt land south
of my garden. This was no problem until they decided to light it,
justified, as they saw it, by a few acts of petty opportunist vandalism,
which could have happened anywhere in the south east. As a principle victim
of this vandalism, I opposed this lighting from the beginning. My
opposition was initially ignored, then met with ridicule before my
objections were dismissed out of hand as I was told they did everything
’democratically’ and I was outvoted. I became extremely angry with their
attitude.
Ignoring all advice and objections, they built a lighting system fit for a
motorway intersection in a rural spot on a greenfield site. This lighting
was visible for miles, illuminating the inside of my house and as these
lights were on during all hours of darkness, locally they effectively
banished night. The Parish council declared that it was very pleased with
the lighting, considering it a great improvement to local amenities. They
were pleased with themselves.
Even when a negative article with pictures of their lights appeared on the
front page of the ‘Sevenoaks Chronicle’, after they had heard from academics
and my MP who claimed to be interested, and received a book sent to all
Parish Councils instructing them how not to do rural lighting with a picture
of their lighting on the cover as a worst example, they were completely
unrepentant, still making absurd claims about me and my actions.
To the best of my knowledge, only two members of the council did not agree
with this and tried to persuade them to take a different course of action.
Eventually the lighting was altered, but by only by the minimum amount they
could get away with.
This former dark spot has been rendered useless for any serious astronomical
observations by people who all, in part, gained their positions by claiming
to be concerned with the local environment. They clearly have exempted
themselves from concern about light pollution, consistently doing nothing
about it for over ten years. Levels of petty vandalism remain unchanged; however
the lighting has benefited local teen drug dealers and the curious local
phenomenon of dogging. This seems an appropriate epitaph for such needless,
officially sanctioned vandalism.
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