Lamp post been installed in the wrong place.

[the_rudeboy 12]

I am going to be busy raising awareness of these issues, so I hope the council can be proactive and act before the public's dislike causes embarrassment.

 

Most of the feedback I've seen has generally been positive.

[WallBuilder 10]

Most of the comments on here and those that I've heard from friends or aquaintances seem to be in favour of the new lights. The lights are there to serve a purpose not just to look appealing so I prefer the idea of them being bright enough to light the area.. I'll be interested to see how the dimming procedure is carried out but assume that this will be more likely to happen in places that are non residential where vehicle and pedestrian flow is rare or non existant during the night.

[Guest]

I think the only one they should have addressed would be about shielding when they are outside someone's house, after all they're to light the street.

 

Otherwise I think they're brilliant. The colour temperature is fine, they're not blue, they're far nearer to natural daylight to me, although has anyone actually enquired as to the colour temperature of them? People are so used to unnatural light that they complain when it is, it's the same with TVs, smart phones, etc, people are so used to colours being overblown etc, when they see correct colours/light temperature they just don't like it.

[V.Rossi 10]

I really wouldn't worry too much, knowing SCC it will fail at some point in the near future and they wont repair it for good few months.

[the_rudeboy 12]

I think the only one they should have addressed would be about shielding when they are outside someone's house, after all they're to light the street.

 

Otherwise I think they're brilliant. The colour temperature is fine, they're not blue, they're far nearer to natural daylight to me, although has anyone actually enquired as to the colour temperature of them? People are so used to unnatural light that they complain when it is, it's the same with TVs, smart phones, etc, people are so used to colours being overblown etc, when they see correct colours/light temperature they just don't like it.

They are cool white with a colour temp around 5000k

 

I really wouldn't worry too much, knowing SCC it will fail at some point in the near future and they wont repair it for good few months.

 

Amey are responsible for maintenance for the next 24 years.

[Guest]

They are cool white with a colour temp around 5000k

 

So daylight then. Not sure why people are complaining about them being too blue. They don't seem to complain about daylight.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature

[andyrdj 10]

Firstly, it's worth noting that daylight varies from 5600k at mid day to around 2000-3000 at sunrise/sunset. I personally don't think it's good to try to get midday lighting at night because the extra blue light will inevitably disturb sleep cycles and supress our best natural cancer fighting agent - Melatonin.

 

Secondly., the colour temperature is only a nominal one. A true colour "temperature" implies a spectrum equivalent to Black body radiation (i.e. heat produced by a purely thermal effect.).

 

Here are several example black body. distributions for different temperatures

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Bbs.jpg

 

LED lights do not tend to follow this spectrum well because they are not themal radiation, - they have extra peaks in the blue region and are noticeably deficient in the reds and yellows. Here is another picture showing the distributions of different light sources

http://www.energycircle.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/Inline/images/stories/10014/light-spectrum-common-light-sources.png

 

 

I've seen outdoor incandescent lighting at night and it's noticably different - a lot more comfortable on the eyes.

 

This colour deficit is improving with later LEDs, however - see this link here

http://www.soraa.com/news/vivid-launch-home

 

You'll note that in the later version the "blue overshoot" is gone, and the light extends a bit more into the red. I hope that this will lead to a better balance in future versions.

The image below shows supression of melatonin by colour

http://peperperspective.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/slide11.jpg

 

I recently discovered that colour discrimination ability varies greatly from person to person - so there will be a lot of people at the lower end of colour sensitivity who won't notice the difference. Some people, for example, look at a forest and just see green, others see a whole rich range of colours.

 

At the extreme end, there are people who are very sensitive to fluorescent and even some LED lights, as shown here http://www.spectrumalliance.co.uk/

 

I personally think that getting away from the old sodium is good, but where we're going is very pale and lifeless. Just a little more red and yellow, and a little less blue, would suit me. The idea of the whole city at night looking like the cheap lighting on a bus is very depressing to me.

 

Lastly, the new lighting is definitely too intrusive off the roads. This year I've seen windows with christmas decorations which used to look lovely, but are now drowned out by the intrusive street lighting. It's not just terraced houses that look onto the street, it's houses in their own gardens over 10 metres from the road which are still bathed in this all pervasive blue light.

 

So this might be the last year you get to enjoy christmas lights before they're rendered ineffective by the near daylight level of light. Certainly some of the displays in the middle of roundabouts willl be lost.

 

Also, say goodbye to the enjoying the lovely winter constellations in the city. I recently tried this on the same night in a street with sodium lamps, then just down the road with the new LED lamps. With the sodium lamps, I could quite easily make out Orion and the Pleiades. With the LED lamps I couldn't see any more than the brightest couple of stars.

 

It's an interesting truth that the sides of your eyes are more sensitive than the front to light (more rod cells, fewer cone cells) so light interference can actaully be greater from lights you're not directly looking at.

 

It doesn't have to be this way - at the very least we should expect shielding and/or reflectors to concentrate the light onto the streets. I know people with rooms right next to the large lights who say it's like daylight at night without a thick blackout curtain. The council should be ashamed for carrying this out so crassly and insensitively.

 

---------- Post added 18-12-2013 at 16:52 ----------

 

Most of the comments on here and those that I've heard from friends or aquaintances seem to be in favour of the new lights. The lights are there to serve a purpose not just to look appealing so I prefer the idea of them being bright enough to light the area.. I'll be interested to see how the dimming procedure is carried out but assume that this will be more likely to happen in places that are non residential where vehicle and pedestrian flow is rare or non existant during the night.

 

It seems a strange attitude to take, that our city should not look pleasing to the eye. I wonder if the same thinking is behind much of the horrible architecture we have to ensure.

 

And I've met lots of people who think the new lights look horrible.

 

---------- Post added 18-12-2013 at 16:55 ----------

 

It will be easier to buy some blackout curtains than getting it moved i'm afraid....all SCC and Amey will say are "Its in the right place according to the plans"

Unfortunatly common sense doesn't come into it much when it comes to council works like this

 

I beleive they do have a legal obligation to shield it from you if it's causing a nuisance - I've read about it happening in other councils. In some cases it's jsut been a bloke with some masking tape, but hey, it's a start.

 

Unfortunately their response is typical of everything I've seen about the council with this - they don't give a monkeys about individuals, just the plans as a whole. They abdicate all repsonsibility

 

---------- Post added 18-12-2013 at 16:57 ----------

 

If AB dosen't want it, tell Kier or whoever to park it outside my flat. Free lighting would be ace!! Yer avatar is a disgrace BTW :D

 

Are you the sort of person who doesn't like nice warm lighting in his house at night, then? The sort who has a pale fluorescent lamp in the sitting room?

 

---------- Post added 18-12-2013 at 16:59 ----------

 

Why don't you just plan to buy some thicker curtains?

 

He shouldn't have to. There's a benefit to having the light change gradually and naturally in the mornings, it wakes people up gently and helps set their body clock.

 

It's funamentally unfair to have to pay to put the council's crass mistakers right.

 

---------- Post added 18-12-2013 at 17:08 ----------

 

A good link here about light pollution misconceptions

 

http://www.britastro.org/dark-skies/misconceptions.html?0B#newlights

 

"Unfortunately, new streetlights can often cause more light pollution than the older lights they replace!

Light pollution is not solely caused by the old Low Pressure Sodium lights. Mathematical modelling shows that the main cause of light pollution is from light emitted at or just above the horizontal (mostly in the first few degrees). Modern high pressure sodium luminaires often have bowl-shaped lamps, or are tilted by up by 5° - both result in light being emitted a few degrees above the horizontal, and so both contribute significantly to light pollution. "

 

Below that is a set of images showing how shielding can work.

Edited December 18, 2013 by andyrdj