Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Plunged into darkness? I think not!

There's been a fair bit of fuss today on the airwaves about councils cutting back on street lighting.  Our local BBC radio station stirred up a great deal of discussion, mostly ill informed.  Comments like "How would you feel if the street lights were turned off?" don't actually help anyone.  Stockton Council has no plans to turn off lights but it does use modern technology to allow the lights to be dimmed in the wee small hours of the morning.  The amount of dimming is such that it makes a significant energy saving but isn't detectable by the human eye.  So no health & safety issues but a saving of carbon emissions and eventually cost.  What could be more sensible?  But to listen to the radio presenters you'd think we were heading for a WW2 blackout.  Suzanne Fletcher managed to ring in and say what had happened in her ward, which was a pilot scheme to test out the new technology.  When no-one noticed and no comments were received it was rolled out across the borough.  But in the half hour I heard, hers was the one sensible voice.
I thought the BBC was supposed to be a public service broadcaster - if I want sensational drama I'll go to another news provider.

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