An often overlooked ecological problem is that of light pollution.

Despite our living in a sparsely populated rural area, the Marsh night sky is surprisingly bright with 'sky glow' light from conurbations like Grimsby/Immingham and Mablethorpe, 'glare' from housing estates, caravan parks, sports pitches, streetlights and commercial premises, and 'light trespass' from badly-sited and usually unnecessary private yard or security lights (especially halogen lights). Because this area is so level, insensitively placed lighting can affect the area for miles around.

Light pollution matters because:

• It wastes energy
• It contributes to global warming
• It is very expensive
• It can annoy neighbours
• It may be a hazard for night-time drivers
• It disturbs and disorients nocturnal wildlife, especially light-attracted insects like moths
• It prevents us from seeing the moon and stars properly, and detracts from the beauty of night-time.

As the CPRE’s head of rural policy, Tom Oliver, puts it, “Light pollution destroys the whole tranquil rural experience”. Those who have ever seen glowworms, or meteor showers, or phosphorescence, or a full moon filtering through bare winter trees, or seen badger boars fighting by moonlight, will easily understand how important it is to keep the countryside dark and magical.

One reason why we don’t tend to think about this problem is simply that few of us are ever out in the countryside at night, and so just don’t notice. And of course many people (not only children) are actually frightened by darkness, so find lights comforting rather than intrusive. Others believe that they need external lights to deter burglars (even though movement-activated lights are much more effective, as well as being much cheaper to run).  

There is increasing awareness of this problem, with councils around the country saving both on CO2 emissions and on money by turning off a proportion of unnecessary streetlights at night. Essex County Council leads the way on this, and already saves thousands of pounds each year – but even ELDC has experimented with turning off a small number of lights in the Mablethorpe area between midnight and five am.

Site visitors may care to lobby ELDC and Lincolnshire County Council to clamp down further on wasteful and ugly lighting, or to challenge insensitive commercial enterprises. Some lights are of course necessary, but the impact of necessary lighting can be reduced by having downward-angled lights with less powerful bulbs, or by planting trees around premises that do need to have permanent lights.

The following websites offer useful information and suggestions.

www.cpre.org.uk

www.lightpollution.co.uk

www.britastro.org