Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
LED street lights coming to Haringey?
I noticed this on Lynne Featherstone's website yesterday:
"The Haringey Liberal Democrats, for instance, have put together a fully-costed plan to replace Haringey’s old street lighting with new energy efficient LED street lights.
As well as reducing the Council’s electricity bills and helping the environment through lower electricity usage, the new lights will help to reduce crime and the fear of crime by making our streets brighter at night."
It may have passed me by had I not watched the BBC London News the previous evening, where I saw this report.
I applaud forward thinking in energy and cost saving, but I just hope that the relevant tests are done to ensure we don't end up with an unhappy situation if it all goes ahead.
This is in no way a political post. Just thought it interesting :)
Tags for Forum Posts: led lights, street lighting
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by 2h042tmwz9cag on
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Rob,
There is, as far as I'm aware, currently no formal report. The whole issue of the potential health impacts of LED street lighting is a bit of a moving target, for local authorities who are only now starting to 'wake up' to the issues, for PHE, and for central government.
The information I reported on this blog was based on a personal email from Huw Brunt of Public Health Wales (who following my enquiry sought advice from PHE) and a subsequent conversation I had last week with a Dr John O'Hagan at Public Health England, based in Oxford.
I have agreed to follow this up with Dr O'Hagan as he was attending two meetings last week on the topic.
A direct quote from Huw Brunt's email is as follows:
We do have concerns about flicker from LED lighting, even at frequencies above what is perceivable to the eye. There is a theoretical risk of beating when two adjacent street lamps are driven by slightly different frequency drivers, which may result in perceptible flicker depending on the location of the observer.
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The Daily Mail have published an article on the topic today:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2609957/Coming-street-near-...
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Permalink Reply by phippsofacto on
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Interesting read. I didn't realise quite how expensive they were to install.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Simon Nicholas has emailed me and has promised to send me more information. He raises a number of objections. (And also shows how to conduct an effective national campaign! )
However, I'm always cautious about taking sides in a technical argument. Let's try to find out more.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Tris,
There may be an additional problem of poorly designed luminaires (not really excusable if there is as the council should have done their homework) but the main issues remain excessive blue light content, excessive glare, flicker and poor light spread causing patches of excessive brightness adjacent to areas which are pitch black.
Why is this? Because of all the hype about LEDs.
The reality is that the technology has noy yet reached a stage of development where it can provide a totally adequate alternative to sodium lighting. This is being misunderstood and/or ignored by local authority staff and politicians who should do the due dilligence and verify the claims made by the LED sales guys.
A significant part of the energy savings is derived from LEDs producing less light. Due to the nature of the technology this light will be very focussed (if defracted to provide a less harsh more even beam efficiency is lost) but the LED guys' answer to this unevenness is to sell it as 'better directionality'.
Furthermore, LEDs are only more energy efficient than sodium if they operate at high CCTs with a significant energy spike around 450nm. Blue light at night has been shown my many studies to be bad for the environment as it is unnatural.
As for Harringay station, there may be an argument for white light in public spaces such as railway stations. That is a different argument - one covered by Falchi, Haim & Cinzano in the conclusions of the their research: use white light sparingly, and only in areas of high crime/CCTV usage where the benefits outweigh the environmental damage.
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Simon, in your email you said you'd be emailing me more information.
When you send it, I'd appreciate if as well as listing published papers which support your view, you'd also include some references - you needn't send copies - to published research which contradicts your case. I'm sure you've explored the question from different sides before reaching the strong conclusions you're presenting on HoL.
To make it clear, I accept that you are raising legitimate concerns about the unintended possible consequences of new(ish) technology - most importantly to public health.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Alan,
I've already sent the information in four separate emails over the past few days to Alan.Stanton@vigin.net. Have you checked your spam box?
If for some reason its not there, can you please let me have an alternative email address and I'll re-send it.
As for research which contradicts my case, there does not seem to be any. If you find it out there, I'd be happy to consider it - but what appears to have happened is the LED industry has seen a commercial opportunity to be exploited, and research into the wider effects and subsequent legislation to protect us from the worst excesses of the technology is having to play catch-up.
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Thanks Phil, but that was a typo above - I did send them to Alan.stanton@virgin.net !
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Thanks Simon, two emails to alan.stanton@Virgin.net arrived.
20 April 2014 14:36 and 22 April 2014 09:07 (with the link to the Daily Mail)
The other two didn't arrive. Please resend trying: alan.stanton@blueyonder.co.uk.
I'm puzzled you've found no research at all contradicting your case. Given your cynicism about the LED manufacturers I'd have expected them to fund it!
Have you sought the views of campaigning organisations? For example, in the past Friends of the Earth has run effective campaigns about light pollution.
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Alan,
On the contrary, Philips have even accepted in a piece on their own website that there may well be an issue!
As for LED manufacturers, it is widely acknowledged that there are lots of 'cowboys' jumping on the bandwagon as well as a few reputable manufacturers.
I doubt the cowboys either have enough resources to fund research or plan to be around long enough to deal with the warranty claims or any other types of claims for that matter.
Regarding Friends of the Earth etc. the problem I've encountered is finding people with sufficient understanding of the technology to see potential problems.
It seems that most of the people who understand the technology are too busy exploiting the commercial opportunities to lose sleep over the ethics!
I've been 'campaigning' for about a year now and am about to engage with central government again (Department for Transport) having raised the issue towards the end of last year through my own MP.
I will re-send the two missing emails now.
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Simon, I've now got a copy of your email to Cllr Rocky Gill of Barking & Dagenham. But not (yet) the fourth one.
Can you please email me the link to Philips' website where they: "accepted in a piece on their own website that there may well be an issue". I looked but couldn't find it. Thanks, again.
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Alan,
I'll try again with the fourth (and most important one) plus a link to the Philips web page.
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