Lighting Journal September 2021 by The ILP

Professional best practice from the Institution of Lighting Professionals

September 2021

SAFE AS STREETS? Revisiting the complexities of street lighting and safety at night SETTING THE SUN What dynamic lighting schemes can learn from sunsets POETIC CONNECTIONS The retrofit versus replacement dilemma when LED handrail lighting fails

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Contents

06 SAFE AS STREETS?

POETIC 34 CONNECTIONS

TROUBLE 12 THE WITH TILT

SUN AND 38WIND, LIGHT

The appalling murders of Sarah Everard and sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman have reignited longstanding debates around the relationship between street lighting and safety at night, especially for women. At the ILP’s AGM, academics Dr Jemima Unwin and Professor Peter Raynham outlined some latest research

Too often it is assumed tilting luminaires is a harmless answer to improving the light on the footpath on the opposite side of the road. But, as Nick Smith highlights, tilting luminaires dramatically affects their light-distribution characteristics, and not for the better, as it can also increase glare or skyglow

14 ALL THE COLOURS

Colour-changing LED spotlights now create a riot of colour each night in Coventry’s Greyfriars Green, all part of the city’s lighting-led transformation this year as the 2021 UK City of Culture, write Jo Shore and Andy Hart

SETTING THE SUN

Sunrises and sunsets have a positive effect on mood yet also challenge our visual system, which assumes light comes always from above. When it comes to considering dynamic lighting schemes that reflect the natural world, this contradiction needs to be taken into account, argues Maria Alves

FOR 24 PLANNING DARK SKIES

During May and June the ILP held two highly informative webinars on dark skies and light pollution, including the first held by the YLP, which addressed planning issues

TURNING LIGHTS OUT, TOGETHER

LDC Durham’s dark skies webinar emphasised the need for lighting professionals to be working collaboratively to mainstream dark skycompliant lighting

LED handrails have become increasingly popular in recent years but most solutions come as a package (handrail and light). This can leave councils facing a retrofit versus replacement dilemma when just one part of the installation fails, as Tim Barker illustrates

Surrey County Council is testing a hybrid wind and solar lighting column that could change how road signage at roundabouts is illuminated

40 WIRELESS WORSHIP

Switching to LED and a wireless control system has transformed the venerable Grade I listed St John the Baptist Church in west London. David Burch outlines how, as with any heritage site, getting from aspiration to reality needed very careful, considered, collaborative steps

TO 44 ANGASHOMAGE LIGHTING

Predominant in the nineteenth century, overtaken in the twentieth, gas lighting has nevertheless hung on in our public realm. Christopher Sugg, great, great, great grandson of gas lighting pioneer Thomas Sugg, looks back at its history and reflects on its lasting popularity

48‘CELEBRATING COLOUR

The ILP’s second ‘How to be brilliant’ event of 2021 saw acclaimed artist Liz West unpick her method and her artistic vision, in the process explaining how she arrives at her spectacular, immersive, colour- and light-based installations

THE 54 RISK AND RETURN 58 BEYOND PANDEMIC Most of the time on contracts, a lighting professional will simply be supplying services to a primary client. But on large, complex projects especially there may be third parties who you also need to keep happy. Howard Crossman and George Elliman outline how managing risks and liabilities around such ‘third-party rights’ can be a complex legal balancing act

The ILP held its annual general meeting in June, virtually again because of the pandemic, where Fiona Horgan stepped up to become President, taking over from Anthony Smith. We present edited extracts from both their presentations

p COVER PICTURE

A graphical representation designed to illustrate the complexities around safety and lighting at night, especially perceived versus actual safety. Is the sense of threat heightened by the lighting, the figure, or both? Turn to page six, where Dr Jemima Unwin and Professor Peter Raynham outline research that has tried to unpick some of these complex questions. Image: Shutterstock

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Editor’s letter Volume 86 No 8 September 2021 President Fiona Horgan

Chief Executive Tracey White Editor Nic Paton BA (Hons) MA Email: nic@cormorantmedia.co.uk

Lighting Journal’s content is chosen and evaluated by volunteers on our reader panel, peer review group and a small representative group which holds focus meetings responsible for the strategic direction of the publication. If you would like to volunteer to be involved, please contact the editor. We also welcome reader letters to the editor. Design Tolu Akinyemi B.Tech MSc Email: tolu@matrixprint.com

Advertising Manager Andy Etherton Email: andy@matrixprint.com Published by Matrix Print Consultants Ltd on behalf of Institution of Lighting Professionals Regent House, Regent Place, Rugby CV21 2PN Telephone: 01788 576492 E-mail: info@theilp.org.uk Website: www.theilp.org.uk Produced by Matrix Print Consultants Ltd Unit C,Northfield Point, Cunliffe Drive, Kettering, Northants NN16 9QJ Tel: 01536 527297 Email: gary@matrixprint.com Website: www.matrixprint.com © ILP 2021

The views or statements expressed in these pages do not necessarily accord with those of The Institution of Lighting Professionals or the Lighting Journal’s editor. Photocopying of Lighting Journal items for private use is permitted, but not for commercial purposes or economic gain. Reprints of material published in these pages is available for a fee, on application to the editor.

o an extent, Dr Jemima Unwin and Professor Peter Raynham’s article in this edition, from page six, on the relationships between street lighting and safety at night doesn’t get us much further along in what is a complex and difficult debate. It is clear in its conclusions: that trying to generate precise formulas for lighting for safety and perceived safety is probably ‘futile’, given how context-dependent good lighting design will be; that following lighting guides and standards ‘is a safe bet’ but may not in itself create a design or scheme that lends itself to feelings of safety at night; that it is always sensible to be thinking in terms of how a scheme provides light that facilitates movement, orientation, comfort and reassurance. But it also emphasises that these are just ‘pointers’ for further debate, discussion and research. Despite these caveats, I nevertheless feel it is a very important article, and discussion, to be having within Lighting Journal. The fact, too, it was built from a keynote presentation Jemima and Peter gave to the ILP’s virtual annual general meeting in June (which we also cover from page 58) for me speaks volumes about the importance, quite rightly, the ILP is putting on this issue. We were all horrified by the brutal murder of Sarah Everard back in the spring as well as, in 2020, that of sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, even though, as Jemima and Peter make clear, the latter tragedy garnered relatively little publicity by comparison, despite taking place in a poorly lit park at night. Sarah Everard’s murder, however, led to considerable public debate about the role street lighting can play in safety at night, to the extent that many councils either carried out street lighting reviews or were urged to do so by the public [1]. Yet, as Jemima and Peter articulate, one of the immediate challenges you run into in this debate is the difference between perceived safety at night and actual safety from attack or any other form of injury. Perceived safety, in turn, is likely to be governed by multiple, and potentially shifting, factors that may have little to do with how a space is actually lit, including someone’s age, fitness and eyesight, the number of other people around, the economic circumstances of the area and even what they have heard or read about that space. For that matter, too, simply the knowledge – and fear – of what happened to Sarah, Bibaa and Nicole may feed into someone’s perception of the safety, or not, of a space or their general surroundings at night. For me – and I stress I’m definitely not the expert here – I was intrigued by Jemima and Peter’s conclusions from their field work research that the lighting characteristics that appear to matter most are vertical illuminance and the length of dark patches in the environment. This is not to say, of course, that the answer is therefore simply to flood spaces with light or even to keep streetlights blazing all night. Indeed, our reports in this edition on two recent ILP webinars on dark skies (from pages 24 and 30 respectively) illustrate why this very much should not be the answer. Yet it is also clear that enhancing safety at night, and perceived safety, within the public realm, especially for women, is a conversation that needs to be had as we come out of the pandemic and look afresh at our urban spaces and how they are being used at night. The answers may not be – indeed, may never be – clear-cut or straightforward, but this is nevertheless a conversation where it is vital the voice and expertise of lighting professionals is heard. Nic Paton Editor [1] ‘Essex street lights review after Sarah Everard killing’, BBC News, March 2021, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-56442984; ‘Sarah Everard case fuels Lincolnshire street lights petition surge’, BBC News, March 2021, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-56436440; ‘Calls for street light review in wake of Sarah Everard killing’, Basingstoke Gazette, March 2021, https://www.basingstokegazette.co.uk/news/19164050.calls-street-light-review-wake-sarah-everard-killing/; ‘Sarah Everard: Work “already underway” to install extra lighting at Clapham Common’, My London, March 2021, https://www.mylondon.news/news/south-londonnews/sarah-everard-work-already-underway-20088438; ‘Hundreds of Ipswich street lights to stay on in night safety debate – but should more be kept on?’, Ipswich Star, March 2021, https://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/crime/ipswich-council-keeps-streetlights-on-at-night-7837458

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SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

SAFE AS STREETS? By Dr Jemima Unwin and Professor Peter Raynham

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Lighting and safety at night

ecent appalling murders, such as that of sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman and Sarah Everard, have amplified calls for safer streets and for outdoor spaces to be designed more with the needs of women in mind. Yet, for lighting professionals, a key part of this discussion is the fact it is not clear if different environmental conditions could have put the murderers off. In this article, therefore, we make a tentative step towards answering this question by sharing findings of our research into this complex, difficult, and important field. This article is built from a presentation we gave to members at the ILP’s virtual annual general meeting in June (and you can read more about the AGM from page 58 of this edition). Our aim is to highlight nuances that need to be understood and addressed for research to tackle the issue of whether environmental features such as street lighting can help create safer streets. The definition of terms is as important as ever. Perceived safety is different to actual safety from attack or any other form of injury. This perhaps the most complex part the story; the relationship between actual safety and perceived safety, which

in turns plays a role in determining if someone choses to use the streets at night.

SURVEY TO GAUGE SAFETY AT NIGHT

To illustrate the nature of the relationships involved we are using data from a survey that interviewed over 3,000 people. We found that about 6% had been the victim of a crime in the area, over 31% felt unsafe using the area at night and 40% chose not to use the area at night. As we had a large sample responding to this survey, it was also possible to do some demographic analysis of people’s responses. It should be pointed out, however, that surveys like this can have problems with reliability and repeatability; however the results, we feel, do give a guide to some factors associated with safety and perceived safety. Women were less likely to come to the area at night than men. There are a number of possible explanations as to why fears about safety lead people to not use an area at night. These range from the potential harm that may come from being a victim of crime to a person’s psychological outlook. There is also the issue that many of the venues that attract people at night are

designed to attract young people. It is difficult to generalise in this area, as every person who chooses not to go out at night does so for their own set of reasons. Another factor is the extent to which media reports affect how fearful we are. The below headline in the local paper (figure 2 overleaf ) could well have contributed to an increase in fear post lighting installation in the above study. It doesn’t matter whether the fears are well-founded or not, they are certain to affect perceived safety. The way publicity develops around particular horrific incidents is also a key factor in perceptions of safety.

THE MEDIA AND PERCEIVED SAFETY

The very brutal murders of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman in a dark park created relatively little publicity. What publicity there was did not tie the crime to the darkness and thus had limited impact on the perception of safety at night. However, the abduction and subsequent murder of Sarah Everard from a well-lit street attracted much more media attention and made many people across the UK think twice when walking outside after dark.

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SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Lighting and safety at night Thus, it is the way events are presented and perceived that determines how people feel about safety and not a detailed analysis of the actual risks. It could be argued that some level of worry about using the streets at night is useful, as precautions are sensible and we would not want well-lit streets to stop people from taking sensible precautions as precautions reduce and mitigate risks. That said, feeling safe or reassured increases the chance that we will go out and use our environment after dark and this has a knock-on positive effect on the physical and economic health of the nation. As we walk and cycle outside, we exercise and spend more money in local shops. Therefore, even though ‘perceived safety’ or ‘reassurance’ should be differentiated from ‘safety from crime or accident’, it is still important as it affects our behaviour. Our next two studies explored this by using interviews and surveys to get to grips with, firstly, the whole context of perceived safety, including but not limited to lighting. Then, secondly, we wanted to study perceptions in environments where lighting does matter; what is it about the lighting that seems to affect judgements of safety? It may sound too obvious, however the most simple tried-and-tested method of finding out what matters to people is to let them talk and listen. The aim of the first study was to do just this by interviewing people in a way that avoided putting words into their mouths. For example, if you ask participants whether ‘street lighting makes them feel safer’, they will usually answer ‘yes’. This is possibly because of ‘socially desirable responding’, which refers to our tendency to want to help researchers by saying what we think they want to hear. Perhaps might also respond in a certain way because they’d like their local authority to spend more money on street lighting in an area. At the same time as answering ‘yes’, local street lighting changes often go completely unnoticed and lighting conditions may rarely deter us from walking to the local pub, for example.

REASONS FOR REASSURANCE

Our study invited people to take photographs of streets on which they were happy to walk alone at night, and also those which they avoided and then attend a short interview to talk about the places they had photographed. Examples of the photographs can be seen in figure 3 overleaf. Interview transcripts revealed that for only one place out of 212 was lighting the only factor influencing people’s choices. The most common reasons (for 92 % of participants) given for participants’ www.theilp.org.uk

Figure 1. The image on the left shows a breakdown of the people who had been victims of crime in the area. The image on the right shows the fraction of the population who will not come to the area at night

Figure 2. Headlines that may affect survey responses regardless of lighting

reassurance were combinations of (1) access to people who would help them if they got into trouble; (2) presence of street lighting; (3) spatial features such as wide and open streets with a good view ahead and (4) familiarity with the area. In reassuring areas, 64% of people combined lighting with other factors. Participants (76%) avoided streets due to combinations of (1) the presence of people who could pose a threat; (2) lack of access to help; (3) not enough lighting and (4) spatial features such as narrow alleys and blocked views. A total of 62% of people combined lighting with other factors in areas which were avoided. What this ihe interview study demonstrated was that lighting did matter to people, alongside many interlocking factors, particularly ‘guardianship’. This means the role of informal surveillance or ‘Eyes on the Street’, a term coined by Jane Jacobs as a means of expressing the role of

strangers as safety assets on the streets after dark [1]. Having established that lighting matters to people’s route-taking choices and their reassurance on streets at night, then what is it about the lighting that is important? It is really difficult to answer this question by comparing different environments with so many extraneous variables at play. Peter Boyce and his team made a really good attempt by using a ‘day minus night’ (D-N) safety rating [2]. In this, the night safety rating is deducted from the day safety rating to give a value that helps us understand the impact of lighting conditions on a street. If there’s no change in D-N safety rating, then the change in lighting conditions has no effect on perceived safety. If the number is positive, the street is seen to be safer in the day than at night. The higher this value, the likely higher contribution of

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Lighting and safety at night lighting to the change in perception. The D-N safety rating can then be plotted against various lighting metrics in search of correlations. Whilst correlation does not of course mean causation, the patterns revealed by this process can indicate what lighting characteristics might be important.

I M P O R TA N C E ILLUMINANCE

Confident

Not confident

VERTICAL

Using this method, 77 people were invited to streets in Sheffield during the day and at night to rate safety on a six-point scale. Plans of the streets can be found in figure 4. The results showed that the lighting characteristics that appear to matter most were vertical illuminance and the length of dark patches in the environment. Vertical illuminance is important in the environment, as objects of interest are invariably vertical, be that buildings that define our spatial envelope and present options for escape and refuge or other people, who we are keen to scope out and gauge, especially in terms of perceived threat or safety. The length of dark patches also seemed to matter, as the D-N safety rating was highest on streets with dark patches of less than 1 lux for more than 10 metres. It is, of course, speculation but this could be linked to our primordial fear of what could be hiding in the dark. In essence, it is not what we see but what we can’t see, and therefore imagine could be lurking there. This ties into the ideas of a researcher called Mark Warr who suggested that the world turns into ‘lurk lines’ after dark [3]. These ‘lurk lines’ turned out to be horrifying reality for Bibaa, Nicole and Sarah.

Not confident

Figure 3. This shows examples of photographs provided by participants in our study

Figure 4. This shows examples of the streets used in our study

CONCLUSION

Precise formulas for lighting for safety and perceived safety are futile when good lighting design is highly context dependent. Following lighting guides and standards is a safe bet but will not necessarily create a design that creates a feeling of safety. It is therefore always a good idea to consider a lighting design in terms of the way it meet a user’s needs in terms of providing light for movement, orientation comfort and reassurance. The work described in this article provides pointers – no more than that – towards what could be worth exploring further.

WHAT SOME STUDY PARTICIPANTS SAID

‘It’s dark; there is never anybody around there; it has steep steps which are old and dangerous’ (referring to Baker’s Hill, Hackney, east London) ‘Wide road, has bus routes, better class’ (referring to Crimicar Lane, Sheffield)

However, if you would like any more information or would even like to collaborate with future research, then please do feel free to get in touch by email, to: jemima.unwin@ucl.ac.uk and p.raynham@ucl.ac.uk

Dr Jemima Unwin is lecturer and Professor Peter Raynham is professor of the lit environment at The Bartlett, University College London Faculty of the Built Environment

[1] Jacobs J (1961). ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities’. London, Jonathan Cape. [2] Boyce P R, Eklund N H, Hamilton B J, and Bruno L D (2000). ‘Perceptions of safety at night in different lighting conditions’. Lighting Research & Technology, 2000; 32; pp.79-91. [3] Warr M (1990). ‘Dangerous Situations: Social Context and Fear of Victimisation’. Social Forces 68: pp.891-907; Green J, Perkins C, Steinbach R, Edwards P (2015). ‘Reduced street lighting at night and health: A rapid appraisal of [1] GN12: The smart lighting column, available from https://theilp.org.uk/resources/ public views in England and Wales’. Health & Place, 2015; 34; pp.171-180.

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SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

THE TROUBLE Too often it is assumed tilting luminaires is a harmless answer to improving the light on the footpath on the opposite side of the road. But tilting luminaires dramatically affects their lightdistribution characteristics, and not for the better, as it can also increase glare or skyglow By Nick Smith

ith outdoor lighting, it is so tempting to skip the calculation step in the design process and simply specify the pole-top luminaire with a variable tilt mount, so that it can be tilted if the throw of light doesn’t reach all the way across the road, street or parking area. Installers and decision makers often think, ‘it’s a high G class fitting, and tilting it won’t change the amount of glare or uplight’. Or will it? Tilting increases glare for many drivers and pedestrians and alters the luminaire’s back light uplight and glare (as defined in the ‘BUG’ ratings) but also affects the threshold increment calculations and G classes, which is one of a number of ways luminaires can be classified. Many of us are weary of seeing tilted luminaires installed not just in parking areas but also in warehouses, on buildings and along roads and streets. Luminaires, when shipped to a laboratory for photometry, are carefully mounted and levelled according to the manufacturer’s

intended installation orientation, and that’s generally with the aperture or LED array, facing downward. It is in this orientation that the intensity distribution is measured, reported in a photometric file, and the data evaluated for the luminous intensity classifications. The BUG system used in North America assigns a value of U0 through U5, depending on how many lumens are emitted upward, and Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) guidelines and recommended practices use these classifications for different lighting zones.

FOCUS ON G CLASS

In the UK and Europe, we use the G class based on the luminous intensity at various angle to the downward vertical. We also consider the light at 90 degrees and above 90 degrees too. Often a designer will choose a lantern by

looking at the G class alone; I have seen this happen multiple times. The designer may think high G class is the solution but fail to look at the pattern (which may be symmetrical), so as much light goes behind the luminaire as in front. This causes excessive light pollution; it wastes light and energy. For example, in E0 (the most environmentally sensitive zones), most utilitarian lights should be fully shielded, emitting light only downward and earning a G6 or U0 classification. Luminaires with a U0 or G6 classification minimise the scattering of light that is compounded into skyglow or that affects birds, insects and other wildlife looking for a tasty snack or a new date. Glare impact for drivers and vehicles is built into the BUG system, but it will also shorten your spacings. When you tilt a luminaire near a roadway, the luminous intensity will be

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Public realm lighting

TILT increased in the direction of the driver’s view. This can increase discomfort glare and veiling luminance, all of which interfere with the driver’s ability to see details on the road and footpath. Skyglow, the glowing haze above most cities at night, is most affected by uplight, which is why tilting is such a concern. Uplight can also be as a result of reflected light for the surface being lit as an example a concrete surface will reflect about one third more light than a black asphalt surface. Calculating skyglow is complex but there are a number of ways to help calculate skyglow from different atmospheric conditions as well as from different luminaire optical choices, light output and spectral power distributions (SPDs). The IES, CIE and other bodies have committees looking at this work.

AFFECTING SKYGLOW

Tilting luminaires dramatically affects their light distribution patterns, and not for the better. I recently carried out a course in the use of AGI32, which allows the calculation of

u pwa r d l i g h t though direct and or reflected methods. CIE150 calculations can be carried out and I know similar options are available in other software too. It is important to note here that all outdoor luminaires contribute to skyglow unless they’re switched off. Even luminaires that direct all light downward will contribute to skyglow indirectly, since some percentage of the light is reflected from the ground and surrounding structures. But direct uplight is not mitigated through reflection and can be compounded by multiple bounces (‘scattering’) among the particulates and aerosols in the atmosphere. Consequently, a 10% increase in uplight can cause much more than a 10% increase in skyglow. Tilting the luminaire may improve the road illuminance and the uniformity farther from the pole, so it’s a natural assumption that this is a ‘harmless enough’ practice. So how do we get the light to the edge of the parking lot or road without tilting? We use a luminaire with optics designed for

this type of lighting application. As part of the choice of luminaire the road width plays a critical part in the optic used. In the case of a car park, for example, an asymmetrical distribution luminaire mounted with zero degree tilt will give us the distribution we need, without sacrificing uplight, skyglow or glare.

SUMMARY

In conclusion, spread the word that tilting luminaires dramatically affects their light-distribution characteristics, and not for the better. I have always maintained, if an LED product needs to be tilted to get the performance, you have the wrong optic or product. Tilting increases the potential for causing uplight, skyglow and glare. So, specify lanterns with zero-degree tilt and as a matter of course, even in a town or city centre. Don’t just assume because there is already a high level of brightness in an area lanterns can be tilted; you are simply adding to the problem! Specifying a G class is not sufficient to eliminate uplight; if luminaires can be tilted on site, tilting the luminaire will change the G class. Similarly, avoid specifying knuckle-mounts, so as to reduce the chances of the luminaire being installed inappropriately. But, finally, how much does tilting affect the luminaire’s performance in terms of uplight, skyglow, BUG values and glare? ‘Depends on which optical package you’re specifying, and the angle of the tilt’, is the reply. In other words, do the design and the software will tell you the answer. If you need to move light asymmetrically, specify asymmetrical optical systems in lieu of tilting. Tilting might be cheap and easy, and it lets you skip on some calculations – but it’s irresponsible from an environmental and safety standpoint. In the interest of responsible design, this information needs to get out to designers, specifiers, facility managers, and installers to ensure that outdoor lighting is delivered as effectively as possible, with the minimum of skyglow, disability glare and discomfort. Nick Smith FILP IEng MIES is managing director for Nick Smith Associates

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SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Public realm lighting

ALL THE COLOURS Colour-changing LED spotlights now create a riot of colour each night in Coventry’s Greyfriars Green, all part of the city’s lightingled transformation this year as the 2021 UK City of Culture

By Jo Shore and Andy Hart

reyfriars Green in Coventry is, as its name suggests, one of the city’s much-loved green spaces. It is, broadly, a triangular space that sits between Coventry Railway station and the main shopping precincts and, while not the most direct route for visitors arriving into the city, it is certainly the most picturesque. It contains oak trees, beautifully kept flower beds, walking and cycling routes, picnic spots and park benches to relax on; it is also home to an iconic statue of Bucephalus, the horse of Alexander the Great As part of our transformation of Coventry to coincide with the city being UK City of Culture this year (and as Lighting Journal www.theilp.org.uk

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

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SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Public realm lighting The 18 columns in Greyfriars Green now each have three colour-change spotlights attached, delivering red, green, blue and white LED to create a myriad of effects and scenes

has been covering at regular intervals), the street lighting within Greyfriars Green has been completely overhauled. Previously, the green was illuminated by standard metal halide luminaires on 6m columns. That was fine, it was functional and it worked, but we wanted to bring something a little more special to the space, especially at night. We also wanted to make it more enticing, a route that would actively draw people to the city. We discussed various options and ideas, everything from a trail of light through to illuminated arrows. One element that kept coming up in our discussions was the Pride rainbow, not least because there is a pub, The Yard, at the end of Greyfriars Green where Pride is very much part of its identity.

CELEBRATION OF COLOUR

We began thinking about colour-change lighting, though just doing some sort of rainbow effect felt a bit simplistic. Eventually it was suggested, ‘why not change the colours round?’, and that led to our answer. The result is that each of the green’s 18 columns now has three spotlights attached (so 54 in total), each delivering red, green, blue and white LED, to create a myriad of effects and scenes to reflect the different seasons and mark and celebrate events and awareness days throughout the year. In fact, we have 52 million different options to choose from, all very simply controlled via an app. One initial challenge was that we couldn’t

justify the cost and upheaval of replacing the columns, which had been upgraded relatively recently as part of the city’s wider PFI works. So we had to do quite a bit of work around calculating weight and wind-loading; we had to find lightweight lanterns and clamps that would work with the existing columns. We also knew we could only drill so many times into the columns without weakening their structure; so it was a careful balancing act. The columns also still have their street lighting lantern on top so as to provide the functional wayfinding illumination that is of course essential to the space at night.

MANAGING BAT POPULATION

Alongside the column illumination, six trees in the green have been illuminated, with a circle of four ground lights around each. This was challenging in that we had to work closely with our arboriculture and ecology teams; it had to be hand-digging around the trees so as not to disturb or damage anything. A number of the trees also had roosting bats within them. Working closely with our ecologist, it was deemed safe to carry out the works but that the lights for those trees could not be turned on until May, as by that time the bats would have left. We have been assured the lighting, once on, won’t affect the green’s bat population generally. We started installation on the project in September 2020, with the works completed

[1] Guidance Note 12: The smart lighting column, is available from the ILP, at https://theilp.org.uk/publication/guidance-note-12-the-smart-lighting-column/

just before Christmas. We had hoped that Christmas shopping would still go ahead as normal that year, so there was a big push to get everything completed in time so the space would be ready for the festive season. Obviously, however, in the event Christmas last year didn’t really work out like that. The project was also completed before publication by the ILP of its GN12 The smart lighting column guidance [1]. While, in some respects, it would have been handy to have at the time, luckily the works all tick the boxes anyway! So, what has been the result? At nighttime now Greyfriars Green feels like a completely different space to walk through. We’re seeing a lot more footfall, both during the day and at night. Because of Covid restrictions, we haven’t been able to gather any hard data, but it certainly feels like more people are now using Greyfriars Green as a route into the city. It is not just about the lighting, obviously, but we feel it is an important part of this change. Certainly, in the evenings (especially now as the nights begin to draw in), why wouldn’t you take such a beautiful, well-lit route as opposed to walking along a main road? It is a no-brainer really.

Jo Shore is head of public realm and Andy Hart is consultant project manager working for Coventry City Council

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SETTING THE SUN

Sunrises and sunsets have a positive effect on mood, yet also challenge our visual system, which assumes light comes always from above. When it comes to considering dynamic lighting schemes that reflect the natural world, this contradiction needs to be taken into account By Maria Alves

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Natural light

ow does colour perception, arising from decomposed light, affect our emotional responses? Can exposure to dynamic lighting environments, artificially conceived, activate positive mood states? Light, colour, and emotion is a subject traditionally associated with the idealised worlds of art and poetry or mystical experience. Exposure to distinct regions of the visible electromagnetic spectrum is understood to influence human health and affective states, though the knowledge we have is, as yet, limited. My Light and Lighting MSc thesis at UCL provided me with an opportunity to gain an insight into this topic, approaching it from an ecological perspective to visual perception that emphasises the importance of examining the natural world, and which I intend to examine in this article [1]. Focused on analysing our main light source, the sun, my journey began with photographing diverse landscapes in London and the south east of England between January and June 2019, during sunrise and sunset. The sun is at the centre of our existence, no matter how far our technological advances lead us we still depend on it as our primary source of light and energy, nearly as much as our ancestors. It has been worshiped and feared since the beginning of human history. Ancient civilisations, as early as the Babylonians over 4,000 years ago, were already aware of its curative power, using sunlight as a treatment for diseases not only of the body but also of the spirit. Modern scientific evidence confirms that exposure to sunlight influences our physical health and mood (boosting the production of hormones such as serotonin).

DISCONNECTED FROM NATURAL CYCLES

As with most of the life on our planet, humans have been extremely dependent on the daily rising and setting of the sun, until our relationship became distorted by the growing supremacy of artificial light. Accustomed to the comfort of our built spaces, providing protection against all sorts of dangers, we gradually became detached from the cyclical movements of nature. Artificial light turned into our beacon as we grew to be liberated from the imposing outside world. However, the perils of living in an artificially created environment are beginning to be acknowledged, not to mention the impact they are having on our planet. Our circadian rhythms, which control many of the functions of our bodies, are regulated, day after day, by the continuous movements of the brightest star in our sky. Exposure to morning daylight, rich in short wavelengths in the blue region of the light spectrum, is now recognised as a boosting factor to our alertness and mood, thanks to the discovery of the ipRGCs (intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells) in 2002. We are some way from fully understanding how the dynamic light patterns impact on our health and wellbeing, but how significant is sunrise and sunset to our mind and body? Sunrise and sunset present themselves to us, each day, with a magnificent display of light transitions, transfiguring landscapes, revealing or concealing, textures, contours, and objects. Sunrise images are not clearly distinguishable from those of sunsets, though a larger number of atmospheric particles, in the evening, might give rise to more spectacular scenes during sunset. This light event of course occurs every day, being shared by most humans regardless of

geographical location, cultural background, or socio-economic circumstances. Nearly two-thirds (72%) of the 32 participants in my thesis experiment – evaluating six timelapse (sunset) videos, captured at the observation stage – would witness a sunset at least once a month, despite the majority being urban dwellers.

THREE STAGES OF TWILIGHT

Sunset is defined as the sun disappearing over the horizon, while the twilight period (comprised of three stages) starts with the sun setting until it reaches 18° below the horizon. Around 30 minutes before sunset, when the sunlight strikes the atmosphere more obliquely, the sky near the horizon can be witnessed changing colour. It corresponds to the period referred to in photography as ‘the golden hour’, which begins when the sun is roughly 6° above the horizon. The distinctness in the quality of light at this time of the day is perceptible, as the sun is lower its light is softer, more diffused, and displays a warmer colour temperature. The exact same phenomenon occurs at sunrise but in the reverse order. Twilight lasts longer at higher latitudes than in the tropics, and is lengthier during solstices, as the sun takes more time in its descent. At ‘civil twilight’, or the period between sunset until the brightest stars become visible, there is usually enough natural light reflected into the atmosphere to make artificial light redundant. In the UK civil twilight can last 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the time of the year, and it is associated with lighting-up time, requiring road vehicles (if they don’t automatically) to turn on their lights half an hour after sunset until half an hour before sunrise.

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SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Natural light

Regent’s Park, London, at sunset, showing the evening ‘golden hour’

During summer, at latitudes’ higher than 48°34’ twilight can last until sunrise. In winter, the low availability of daylight experienced can cause SAD (seasonal affective disorder), effectively treated by early morning exposure to bright light. Exposure to green light has also been proven as a strategy in treating SAD [2]. Although light therapy is now widely accepted, the healing properties of colours, chromotherapy, have been largely neglected because of a lack of in-depth scientific research [3]. None the less, colour psychology findings are extensively used in our society to incite consumer behaviour. For instance, red is understood to activate arousal while blue is believed to have relaxing properties; however conflicting research outcomes have also been reported. Saturation and lightness have been often dismissed in affective evaluations of colour; some studies based exclusively on hue were found to be inconclusive. In the world outside the lab, it is very unlikely for a person to experience light and colour in a fixed form; this should be taken into consideration when analysing human responses.

DYNAMIC COLOUR TRANSITIONS

The dynamic colour transitions observed in the sky during sunsets are related to why the sky is perceived as blue on a clear day. Molecules of gases that compose the atmosphere www.theilp.org.uk

scatter the light emitted by the sun. The shortest wavelengths of visible light, at the blue-violet end of the spectrum, are more effectively scattered than the longer ones, since the molecules of air are considerably smaller than the wavelength. This process is called selective, or Rayleigh, scattering. At the zenith, the atmosphere is less dense, with fewer molecules, retaining a greater proportion of shorter wavelengths, so the sky looks bluer. Why the sky is not seen as violet is a more complex discussion, but one main contributing factor is that human vision is less sensitive to violet than blue. In today’s densely packed cities, sky views can be extremely restricted, depriving us of the crucial benefits of sunlight. The absence of unobstructed views of the horizon severs further our connection with nature’s cyclical movements. One of my experiment participants, for example, had not observed a sunset in years and typically would not look at the sky. Two studies published in 2014 support the idea that engaging with natural beauty, such as watching a sunset, not only has positive effects on our emotions but also improves our behaviour towards others, such as intensifying empathy [4]. When the sun gets closer to the horizon the atmosphere is far denser, with a higher concentration of gas (air molecules) and particles of different sizes (aerosols), the light

path is also much longer, resulting in most short wavelengths of visible light being scattered away from our line of sight. Longer wavelengths of the light spectrum become noticeable, giving rise to the striking sunset colours: the yellows, oranges, and reds. Twilight colours are most visible near the horizon: yellow hues in the west and rosy towards the east. After sunset, direct sunlight can just reach the sky above, which remains blue. With the sun falling further below the horizon, between 20 to 30 minutes after sunset, the sky can still display orange/red hues, the red light is scattered forward by the atmosphere. When none of the visible atmosphere is illuminated by the sun, night falls. Time of the year, atmosphere composition, weather conditions, latitude, and altitude influence greatly our experience of the sunset. High concentrations of pollution particles in urban areas attenuates sunset colours, in extreme conditions it can turn the sky fully greyish. Saturated colours have been found to increase arousal levels whilst feeling less pleasurable, apart from blue [5].

EVALUATING SUNSET RESPONSE

When evaluating the vibrant (reddish) Whitstable sunset (as shown in the main image on the previous page) for example, the only video which triggered arousal, several city dwelling participants expressed discomfort. Could experiences and memories

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

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Natural light The Millennium Bridge in London at sunset. Even without a direct view of the setting sun it is still possible to experience the dramatic light changes transforming the surrounding environment, seeing for instance its reflections in the glazed façades of urban buildings

influence our response to light? During my monitored thesis experiment, research participants watched sunsets (recordings captured during the golden hour up to the civil twilight) on a wide screen, instead of the natural phenomenon. Despite the virtual approach, my findings suggest that sunsets still invoke awe in most people; these feelings might extend our perception of time, connecting us with the present moment, which results in increased satisfaction [6]. Self-assessment scales, tested in environmental psychology research on emotions, were employed in the questionnaire and repeated for each video in distinct order. Affective responses to the sunset time-lapses were analysed using a three-dimensional approach – pleasure, arousal, and dominance – based on the emotional state method [7]. Visual stimulus, including environment complexity, was measured for each sequence of images. The two sunsets considered as most dynamic were found to be the more pleasurable. Videos displaying a positive trend on lighting descriptors – bright, warm CT (colour temperature), and saturated – had the greatest impact on the level of pleasure, while the

environment found to be the least pleasurable was described as dim, cool (CT) and monochromatic. Exposure to changeable lighting stimulus – varying spectrum, brightness, and saturation levels – impacts pleasure and arousal levels. Result trends, based on mood measurements taken before and after the experiment, allowed for this assumption. My study observed a defined increase in participants’ pleasure and an overall tendency towards deactivation, regarding arousal. My study limitations, however, including sample characteristics and statistical approach, did not allow for more generalised conclusions. The original experiment would benefit from a more refined battery of tests, supplementing the subjective methods with physiological measures. Despite this, results are promising, laying the foundations for further research in an area I have been dedicated to developing.

SUMMARY

were discovered to be connected to regions of the brain that regulate mood but there is still much unknown. Consolidated expertise in this area is needed and is proving increasingly significant in these unusual times, as we look for ways to improve our wellbeing. Sunrises and sunsets are shown to have a positive effect on our mood, nevertheless they also present a daily conflicting perspective on the constraints of our visual system, which assumes that light comes always from above. Could we anticipate that the future of lighting will be focused on providing, biologically balanced, dynamic lighting schemes reflecting the natural world? Lighting would consist of timed textural compositions delivering fluctuations to the perceived spectrum, brightness, saturation levels, and direction of the light. This new approach, I believe, would be one informed by scientific knowledge as well as an approach centred on boosting our emotional and physical health.

Humans have evolved to adapt to extremely dynamic lighting conditions; now we live in safely controlled environments with hardly any variation. Photosensitive ganglion retinal cells

Maria Alves is a lighting consultant and researcher

[1] James Gibson, ‘The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception’, Routledge 1979 [2] Oren D A et al (1991). ‘Treatment of seasonal affective disorder with green light and red light’, American Journal of Psychiatry, 1991 Apr;148(4): pp.509-11, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2006698/ [3] Yousuf Azeemi S T and Mohsin Raza S (2005). ‘A Critical Analysis of Chromotherapy and Its Scientific Evolution’. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2005 Dec; 2(4): pp.481-488, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1297510/ [4] Wei Zhang J et al (2014). ‘Engagement with natural beauty moderates the positive relation between connectedness with nature and psychological well-being’. Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol 38, June 2014, pp.55-63, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272494414000024; Wei Zhang J et al (2014). ‘An occasion for unselfing: Beautiful nature leads to prosociality’. Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol 37, March 2014, pp.61-72, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272494413000893 [5] Rosemarie J E Rajae-Joordens, ‘The Effects of Colored Light on Valence and Arousal’ [6] Rudd M et al (2012). ‘Awe expands people’s perception of time, alters decision making, and enhances well-being’. Psychological Science, 2012 Oct 1;23(10): pp.1130-6, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22886132/ [7] The emotional state method was devised by Mehrabian and Russel

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PLANNING FOR

DARK During May and June the ILP held two highly informative webinars on dark skies and light pollution, including the first webinar held by the YLP. Over the next seven pages Lighting Journal looks at some of key discussions points and reflections that emerged

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Light pollution and dark skies

SKIES By Nic Paton

he YLP’s first webinar of 2021 (and of the pandemic) held in June came with the very simple title: ‘Two expert planners talk about lighting, and dark skies’. As Paul Fellows, head of strategic planning at North York Moors National Park Authority, explained, the session was in part ‘a bluffer’s guide to planning’, and in part a discussion on how lighting can be influenced through the planning system. The final element of the talk saw Paul and Natalie Beal, a policy planner at the Broads Authority, discuss the ten dark skies policy proposals recently put forward by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Dark Skies [1].

Paul highlighted how the focus of the planning system was very much in terms of ensuring the right development is in the right place. ‘It’s about protecting amenity in the public interest. It is basically saying, in terms of the whole public, what’s best. Our planning system in this country does have an element of judgement about it. That judgement does come into areas of design, for example; people often have different opinions on what’s good and what’s bad in our national park. Really it is making sure that everyone benefits from what is developed,’ he explained. He examined how planning regulates development, the legal definition of ‘development’ under The Town and Country www.theilp.org.uk

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Light pollution and dark skies Planning Act 1990 and the fact that interior lighting is one exemption outside the scope of the Act. ‘So, planning has no influence over lighting in the interiors of buildings. And, indeed, a lot of exterior lighting is not covered either,’ he said.

LIMITS TO INFLUENCING LIGHTING

North York Moors National Park Authority was granted International Dark Sky status in December 2020, along with the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and Paul outlined the ins and outs of ‘permitted’ development and how a lot of smaller scale development these days is not in fact subject to planning permission, and therefore there is no way to influence their lighting schemes either. Natalie Beal then looked at the government’s National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and National Planning Policy Guidance (NPPG)[2]. The framework, she explained, ‘sets out the government’s policy on various aspects of planning and life, for example affordable housing, flood risk, the green belt’, with the guidance being webbased and frequently updated. Alongside this overarching framework and guidance, local authorities produce local plans and neighbourhood plans are able to be produced at the neighbourhood and parish level. ‘Relevant to this, I am certainly seeing more policy approaches to dark skies and light pollution in neighbourhood plans,’ Natalie explained. She also highlighted how things are currently in flux, with the government looking to bring forward various changes to the framework. A good summary of these proposals can be found on a recent blog by planning consultancy Lichfields [3]. ‘It’s not clear how these things are going to go forward, but we could see a change to the planning system in the next two or three years. For example, we could see the introduction of zoning, which lots of other countries do,’ said Natalie. ‘The government really wants to emphasise the importance of design, beautiful buildings, and that could be where lighting comes in,’ she added.

ROUTE TO DARK SKY STATUS

The webinar then turned to focus on planning and dark skies in particular, with Paul explaining the process by which North York Moors National Park Authority was granted International Dark Sky status. ‘We are fast losing dark skies. It used to be the case in the 1950s that 50% were affected by skyglow, and now it is more like 90%. Eighty-five per cent of people can’t actually see the Milky Way at night. You can see London from space, but you can’t see space from London. In a dark skies’ area you can see about 2,000 stars whereas most people can see about 200,’ he pointed out. www.theilp.org.uk

‘Getting people interested in dark skies, and particularly children, is a really good gateway into science. There is loads of research about the effect of dark skies, or lack of dark skies, on both health of humans and the health of nature. There is also a really good energy argument for pursuing dark skies; 15%-30% of local authority carbon emissions are from lighting, particularly street lighting. Again, if you can use less lighting you use less energy. The other reason why this is particularly important is that it makes a huge difference to our tourist economy, particularly in terms of extending the season,’ he added. Nevertheless, securing darks skies status had been ‘quite a long and hard road’, he added. ‘You have to identify a core zone where it is particularly dark. That meant we had to go out and do an awful lot of measurement. About 2,000 lighting fixtures were measured and 750 dark sky meter readings taken,’ he pointed out. A lighting masterplan was then developed by renowned dark skies’ lighting consultant Jim Patterson. ‘That establishes a core zone. That is the bit of the national park where we will have slightly different standards operating for what might be possible to put in in terms of lighting when you put a planning application in,’ explained Paul. The authority also had to demonstrate it had local support (which it did overwhelmingly) and keep monitoring how things were going or changing. Alongside this, the authority was working with lighting manufacturers to come up with a list of dark sky-friendly lighting, he revealed. For the Broads, which is not a dark skies reserve, the focus is about influencing lighting that needs permission within two core zones, explained Natalie, with the authority in 2016 carrying out an extensive assessment of its dark skies. ‘It took a long time, about six months, to assess the darkness of the skies of The Broads, over the winter, because you need to have no moon and no cloud. We had five dark skies meters and we had certain people doing it on water who could helm a boat at night. So that was quite a logistical task, but we are pleased with the results,’ she said.

MANAGING ONGOING CHALLENGES

When it came to issues and challenges that needed to be addressed during this process, Paul highlighted that, positively, a lot of the time the authority was ‘pushing at an open door’ when it came to public support. ‘We’re not encountering lots of pushback on any of this; people are fully aware that we are a particularly dark area and applicants are willing to work with us. It may not be the case everywhere, but it is generally what we’re finding,’ he said. Managing existing lighting from existing

developments, which don’t need planning permission, remained a challenge, as did managing interior lighting. ‘Lighting guidance can be quite technical – and that is not a criticism, it is just because it is. But the issue for the simple planner is that, if you are trying to implement a dark skies policy, you need to be able to explain to an applicant what exactly is required. And pointing them to a lighting management plan is a bit of a complicated business,’ Paul advised. ‘Internal lighting is not subject to planning and so we occasionally see applications where somebody wants to put in extensive glazing and roof lights where there can be upward glow. Technically, we haven’t really got a huge amount of control over that. ‘We can often influence the design and persuade, but we can’t necessarily turn plans down, or we need a really good reason to turn down. Fortunately, we’re finding that applicants are receptive to the need to install careful lighting and support the dark sky reserve, and the planning inspectorate is starting to get a bit more supportive in terms of where lighting is becoming more of a particular issue, with internal lighting glowing outwards, and there have been some really good appeal decisions. ‘The other thing we have to grapple with is, if one lighting is fine, what happens if you then get a second lighting on a second house, and then so on and so forth? The other issue, and this is starting to improve – I know some manufacturers are starting to think about this – is that we would love to be in a situation where, when we get an application in, to be able to say to people, “if you go into B&Q and buy this certain light and it has a particular dark skiesfriendly brand on it, we would be happy with that”. We are compiling a list of what we think is dark skies-friendly lighting, but we think it would be really good in terms of lighting manufacturers getting a bit more aware of what is dark skies-friendly and using it as a promotional tool as well; not just how bright it is but how careful it is in terms of protecting dark skies at night. ‘What we’re saying – and what all national parks are saying – is it is about being careful with new lighting. It is not saying no to new lighting, it is being responsible with it. Our mantra is always: light only what you need, light only when you need it, and light at a suitable level to the need,’ Paul said.

PRACTICALITIES OF APPG PROPOSALS

The event concluded with a discussion about the APPG’s proposed ten dark skies policies for government (and see the panel overleaf for a recap on what these are). ‘Generally, we’re very supportive of anything that tries to address light pollution and promote dark skies. It is fair to say these ten policy areas are high level and, of

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

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SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Light pollution and dark skies course, the devil will be in the detail. Who will do it, when will we do it, and how will we do it?,’ cautioned Natalie. However, both Paul and Natalie questioned the practicalities around enforcement and implementation of any of these aspirations. For example, Paul questioned the idea that local authorities could in practice set standards on colour temperature or lighting direction or density. ‘This is a good idea in theory. But the issue in reality is there are 380-odd local planning authorities in the country. So, they are talking about local authorities imposing these standards, but the question is how do you come up with that standard? ‘Is that standard the same one as the International Dark-Sky Association wishes to see in dark skies areas or are we talking about something different? And how does that local authority come up with that standard? The slight worry is that you’ll end up with 380-odd different standards,’ he said. ‘If you’re establishing legal limits for standards, that implies that will be national legislation. So what is the relationship between that and the local authority standards, and why would you need local authority standards if you have national legal limits? Again, a good idea, but who does what

and when?’ Paul questioned. ‘Whatever the standard is needs to be written in a really accessible and obvious way for lay people. It would apply, I guess, to British manufactured or imported lighting. But what about the fact that we can all buy things online that come from overseas and might not be the correct standard? That is something to consider,’ agreed Natalie. There was a similar problem with the idea of dark skies’ impact assessments being required. ‘Again, in principle [this is] a good idea. That implies there may need to be guidance on that, which might be good from the ILP’s point of view. The one thing I would say is that a planner has to go through a lot of stuff already when assessing a planning application. So, if it is going to happen it needs to be very simple,’ Paul said. The idea of creating a Statutory Commission for Night Skies was great in principle but, again, lacking in detail. ‘It is not entirely clear what it [a commission] would do. But my reading is it would come up with standards that local authorities could then adopt. How that will work in practice I don’t entirely know, but it is probably going to be an advisory or appeal body, that is my reading,’ Paul pointed out.

THE TEN APPG RECOMMENDATIONS

luminaires can have in their spectrum and encourage manufacturers, distributors and installers of lighting to adopt best practice in this area. 5. Standards to be set for the direction and density of lighting. This should include introducing a legal requirement that all lighting units are sold and distributed with instructions for the control of obtrusive light and dark skies-friendly mounting instructions and issue penalties for non-compliance. 6. Legislation to be introduced to enforce appropriate times of use for lighting. The APPG is calling for the design of a national programme of ‘Dark Sky Hours’ in which lighting can be either dimmed or turned off completely in consultation with the community, lighting professionals and local police. 7. A regulatory standards body to be established to work with local councils. This should include setting up a statutory body funded by a levy from VAT on lighting product sales to oversee and enforce significant changes in lighting

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Dark Skies’ report Ten Dark Sky policies for the government was published in December 2020 and called for the following: 1. An expansion of the scope of the planning permission process. This should include introducing regulations for exterior lighting that are similar to t h o s e w h i c h c u r r e n t l y c ove r advertisements. 2. The strengthening of statutory nuisance provisions. This should include removing exemptions to give local authorities a more effective method of preventing nuisance lighting. 3. The strengthening of the National Planning Policy Framework. This should include making extensive specific reference to the control of obtrusive light within the framework. 4. Standards to be set for the brightness and colour temperature of lighting. This should include establishing legal limits to the amount of blue light that

The idea of appointing a minister for dark skies would, however, be a step in the right direction. ‘We’d probably support all of these unconditionally. A minister for dark skies with a cross-department portfolio, yes absolutely. Indeed, dark skies towns and cities. And the role of education, absolutely,’ Paul agreed. ‘The question, also, is what does the government do with these recommendations? The one thing we would say is I think there needs to be some sort of look at the new planning system that might potentially be coming our way, and in particular how the design codes within that work in terms of lighting. ‘We are absolutely supportive of what the APPG says. The one slight misgiving we have got is the workload potential on the planning system and environmental health officers and so, again, any support to help with that would be absolutely welcome,’ Paul added in conclusion.

FIND OUT MORE

The full recording of the YLP event can be accessed at https://theilp.org.uk/event/ylpcpd-webinar-two-expert-planners-talkabout-lighting-and-dark-skies/ and keep an eye out for future ILP, LDC and YLP webinars at https://theilp.org.uk/events/

law, punishing non-compliance and empowering local authorities and councils to enforce regulations. 8. The creation of a ‘Dark Sky Communities’ initiative. This would give local government the power to go further to reduce light pollution by creating a voluntary ‘Dark Sky Community’ classification. This, in turn, would mean ‘democratising the way we tackle light pollution by permitting neighbourhoods to make decisions about their lighting’, said the APPG. 9. Responsibility for dark skies to be entrenched within government. The under-secretary of state at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs should be given a clear remit for the control and prevention of light pollution. 10. The role of education to be emphasised. The APPG has called for more work to be done with educational institutions and NGOs to achieve widespread public awareness of the issue of light pollution.

[1] ‘Ten Dark Sky policies for the government’, All-Party Parliamentary Group for Dark Skies, December 2020, https://appgdarkskies.co.uk/ [2] ‘National Planning Policy Framework’, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-planning-policy-framework--2 [3] ‘Design-led – but a variety of NPPF changes are proposed’, https://lichfields.uk/blog/2021/february/2/designled-but-a-variety-of-nppf-changes-are-proposed/

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Premier Member Advertorial SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

SAFE ROADS In recent times we have all gained a new appreciation for green spaces which has helped us stay grounded during this difficult period, the same can be said for the night sky too, the beauty of the stars is something to behold and must be protected.

Guided by the International Dark Skies Association we have engineered luminaries that can minimise light pollution with no upwards light and warm colour temperatures down to 2200K. Our Ignis Range will protect our skies for generations to enjoy for many years to come. The same LED lenses and photometric control can be found across our range including the outstanding CitiSun and Emilio lanterns. For more information on our IDA approved luminaires and advice on designing for dark skies areas please get in touch.

www.orangetek.co.uk

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SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

TURNING LIGHTS OUT, TOGETHER LDC Durham’s recent dark skies webinar emphasised the need for lighting professionals to be working collaboratively to mainstream dark sky-compliant lighting, and how there are aspirations for the whole of the north of England and Wales to become dark skies-friendly

By Nic Paton

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Light pollution and dark skies

DC Durham’s dark skies’ webinar in May, ‘Northern England: dark skies, sharing good practice’ brought together Jack Ellerby, Dark Skies Cumbria project officer at Friends of the Lake District and Mike Hawtin, dark skies project manager at North York Moors National Park Authority. They discussed some of the drivers – and opportunities – behind pushing for darker skies and reducing light pollution and examples of good practice in public realm and business property lighting from Cumbria, the Lake District and within the North York Moors National Park International Dark Sky Reserve. Jack Ellerby, for example, emphasised the important role dark skies may be able to have in helping post-Covid recovery, especially in terms of attracting local tourism or extending the tourist season, especially during the winter months. ‘We can all contribute to that benefit if we get our lighting right,’ he said. He highlighted how there is a now a vision for the whole of the north of England to become one continuous dark sky area, and that is this is something Welsh national parks are combining to look at too; for the whole of Wales to become a dark sky area. ‘Our project and the other dark-skies areas across the whole of the UK are now working together with all the key stakeholders. We will be working increasingly with the industry to try and set good dark skies-compliant standards for lighting; working collaboratively together so we can achieve a lot more,’ he said.

NEED FOR ‘PLACE VISIONS’

Jack outlined the need for lighting professionals to be thinking in terms of ‘place visions’. ‘How is the lighting of that individual development contributing to the environment and landscape of the area, of the town, in its totality? There are dark sky/ wildlife-friendly products out there. But at the moment they are quite hard to seek out. So we need to move from the bespoke product to the mainstream,’ he pointed out. ‘Obviously, rather than light shining up into the sky we need to focus it down on where people are moving on pavements and where vehicles are travelling along roads. Hopefully, we can get the colour temperature more sympathetic to wildlife, so moving from the blue/white-rich content spectrum down into warmer colour temperatures and, indeed, such products are a lot more commercially available now,’ he added. Mike Hawtin outlined his authority’s ‘journey’ to becoming an International Dark Sky Reserve, something of course already covered by Paul Fellows in the previous article. Like Paul, he emphasised the myriad commercial and community benefits as well as environmental of going down this route. ‘Why are dark skies important? If you just talk about stargazing then that is not important to everybody. But they are very important for many more reasons than that. They are

important for reasons of culture, whether that be philosophy or passing down stories through generations. They are important for art. They are important for education; astronomy is known as a gateway science, it is quite often the first taste a child will get for understanding our place in the universe,’ Mike explained. ‘They are absolutely crucial for wildlife, whether that’s the migratory patterns of birds or affecting the behaviour of bats in terms of feeding or mating, and even more recently lots of research has been done into the role that moths play at night in pollinating. Artificial light at night affects all of that. I do believe we are still just scratching the surface; I do believe we will still have our “Attenborough moment” as far as lighting is concerned. ‘There is the rural economy, which is absolutely crucial for Covid bounceback. It is a perfect subject, because it brings in tourism over winter which helps businesses because it doesn’t put any more pressure on infrastructure during the busy peak season,’ he added. ‘We’ve done a huge amount of work with lighting companies, with manufacturers, suppliers, and lighting engineers, to try and identify suitable lighting but also to get information, such as using photometric data to understand light spread,’ Mike pointed out. ‘There is still a lot of what I call “wall wash” going on; if you look at photometric data there is still a lot of light being projected back towards the wall, which the light is bouncing off. Some of the higher-end products, the

An image by Friends of the Lake District Patron and photographer Rob Fraser in the high fells above Ullswater showing the skyglow light pollution from the South Lakeland towns of Kendal and Windermere/and Bowness. Photograph by Rob Fraser

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SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Light pollution and dark skies Left: a spectrometer reading showing the low level of blue-white content at 2400K. The colour temperature varies from 2700K down to 2200k in the middle of the night. Image by Brian Healy

Bottom: new dark skies and wildlifefriendly road lighting (‘NightTune’ from Thorn Lighting UK) installed by Cumbria County Council in Glenridding, Ullswater Valley in the Lake District. Image from Thorn Lighting UK

asymmetric products, are great but they really are higher end and we need that technology, those features, to trickle down and be available for small commercial and residential markets, so that we really are just lighting what we need and when we need it.’

IMPORTANCE OF PARTNERSHPS

Mike highlighted the important role of fostering partnerships, especially with landowners, and bringing your community with you, emphasising in particular the authority’s close partnership with RAF Fylingdales on Snod Hill in the North York Moors National Park. ‘If we can work with a high-security installation like RAF Fylingdales to reduce excessive amounts of light whilst maintaining safety and security then, hopefully, we can convince anybody that sensitive lighting is the way forward,’ Mike said. ‘Being able to see the Milky Way is a right that everybody has. But not many people have that ability now, which is why national parks and other protected landscapes are so important. That we don’t just conserve and protect our daytime landscapes and daytime habitats but that we do all of that at night as well. ‘We need to continue to work with and influence partners and lighting professionals. We need to make sure the good progress that has happened so far continues and the work that is still to be done is around working with planning authorities, making sure that we have improved the controls of lighting, making sure that asymmetric lights are not just at that highest end, that that technology trickles down. We want to protect what we’ve got and improve it and reduce light pollution. www.theilp.org.uk

‘Light pollution is really one of the easiest forms of pollution to solve. We do joke and say it is just a case of switching lights off. But it is not just about that; it is not just about banning all light and people stumbling around in the dark. It is about encouraging responsible use of light and hopefully that message has come through. It is lighting only what you need, when you need it and at a suitable level to the need,’ Mike reiterated.

FIND OUT MORE

The full recording of the LDC Durham event can be accessed at h t t p s : // t h e i l p . o r g . u k / ilp-durham-cpd-webinar-northern-england-dark-skies-sharinggood-practice/

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Light, Seen from the ILP

Whether you're aiming to deliver a design statement or improve usability and safety for your station, stadium, bridge or walkway; we can deliver a flexible solution from design to manufacture and even installation to ensure your ambitions are realised and infrastructure investment is protected. Unrivalled performance, coupled with seamless aesthetics, to deliver the best experience Get in touch with us to find out more at marketing@urbis-schreder.com

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SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

POETIC CONNECTIONS LED handrails have become increasingly popular in recent years but most solutions come as a package (handrail and light). This can leave councils facing a retrofit versus replacement dilemma when just one part of the installation fails, as a recent project in Stratford-upon-Avon demonstrated

By Tim Barker

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Handrail lighting

This image and overleaf: the new handrail lighting in Bancroft Gardens, Stratford-upon-Avon. Photographs by Peter Alvey

mecca for all literature lovers, Stratford-upon-Avon is a popular tourist destination owing to its status as, of course, the birthplace of the playwright and poet William Shakespeare, receiving about 4.9 million visitors a year from all over the world. Its 25-mile-long canal links Shakespeare’s Stratford with the suburbs of Birmingham, passing through enchanting countryside in the very heart of England. Completed 200 years ago to transport coal, this beautiful rural waterway running through the Forest of Arden is now a popular leisure destination and a haven for wildlife. In 2009, Stratford-on-Avon District Council completed a £3m landscaping revamp of Bancroft Gardens, located on

the banks of the River Avon, in front of the world-famous Royal Shakespeare Theatre. The project included a new foot and cycle bridge and vantage point across the lock where the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal joins the River Avon. Ten years later, however, the council faced a decision. The footbridge’s LED handrail lighting had failed, yet the structural integrity of the handrail itself was still sound.

NEW VERSUS RETROFIT

Adopting circular economy principles, the council decided to retrofit new LED lighting pods into the existing handrail to save costs as well as, importantly, breathe new life into an otherwise sound footbridge. The hunt therefore was on to find a

supplier that could meet the many logistical challenges that retrofitting a handrail presents. We at Acrospire were selected as the manufacturer, to work with project lead Exterior Lighting Solutions and contractor Hi-lite Electrical to deliver a full turnkey solution from survey to commission.

THE SOLUTION

The project team installed 100 x 1W 4000K LED power pods into the 3mm thick stainless steel handrail. The pods are manufactured in multiple substrates and available in Grade 316 as standard, with 304, aluminium, and brass options additionally available. The design (which was a 1:1 replacement) uses high-efficiency LEDs and optics to achieve maximum uniformity and a

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SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Handrail lighting comfortable light across the bridge floor. It has an anticipated lifetime of 100,000 hours. For emergency lighting, six 60W Osram drivers were integrated to guarantee light in the event of a single circuit failure. Given the previous failure, Stratford-onAvon DC wanted a solution that would last with minimal LED degradation, so the Acrospire pods are driven at just 350mA, putting minimal stress on the LEDs and drivers to guarantee optimal lifespan. The bridge’s handrail was designed with a sweeping curved profile, which is often challenging when retrofitting LED modules. Our solution is designed to integrate into various configurations, including wooden and spiral staircases, and was therefore radiused to match the handrail diameter.

LIGHT TO GUIDE BUT NOT DISRUPT

The proximity to wildlife along the canal raised further hurdles and required precision control of the light distribution. The ultimate aim was to provide light to guide pedestrians and cyclists along the bridge and stairway yet without disrupting the natural habitat of species who call the river home. Ideally, if a walkway is close to a river or

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area of environmental sensitivity, an asymmetric distribution will ensure light is only placed where it is required, limiting back spill. To achieve this, our LED pods used a 70-degree beam angle. The result is a sharp cut-off with zero spill light on to the river. Moreover, the light is directed to the bridge floor, resulting in minimal obtrusive light.

USER COMFORT AND SAFETY

Footbridges with open-side railings, such as this one had, limit the options for positioning the lighting. The open design of barriers, therefore, had to determine the positioning of the lighting. To avoid glare for user comfort, the pods were placed facing away from users below the bridge level. Furthermore, to guarantee the safety of pedestrians, each pod was supplied with a DC/DC converter to achieve a constant voltage solution fully compliant with SELV regulations. Finally, the pods are protected to the highest IK10++ and IP67 to reduce the chance of vandalism and aesthetic and performance duration caused by the weather. Let’s leave the final words (and, yes, some

very positive testimonials I am pleased to say) to two of our partners in the project. First, Ian Higgins, managing director of Hi Lite Electrical, says of the scheme: ‘The lighting pods provide uniform light to the bridge floor, adding interest to the structure while keeping the structural integrity intact. Not only was the delivery quicker than expected, but Acrospire also supplied a tool for us to use on site, simplifying the installation and making it look as intended.’ Tim Berrick, project officer at Stratfordon-Avon District Council, adds: ‘With natural resource scarcity on the rise and local government budgets squeezed we were very conscious of trying to reuse and recycle, where possible. ‘There are so many LED handrail manufacturers on the market now, yet it was surprisingly difficult to find a supplier that could work with us around our existing handrail. Acrospire was the only manufacturer we came across who could supply an alternative light projector that could be retrofitted without any modification to the rail.’ Tim Barker is managing director of Acrospire Solutions

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Inside the ILP

Raillight Affordable handrail lighting Raillight is available as a complete turnkey solution (including handrail) or a retrofit system to breathe new life (and light) into otherwise sound installations. Designed as a cost-effective and quick-to-install solution for bridge, footpath, and staircase lighting schemes, it provides market-leading performance (exceeding expectations for its discreet size).

YEAR WARRANTY

We’re so confident in our performance we offer an industry-leading 12-year warranty.

Interested? For further information on Raillight contact hello@acrospire.co or visit:

acrospire.co

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SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Street lighting

WIND, SUN AND LIGHT Surrey County Council is testing a hybrid wind and solar lighting column that could change how road signage at roundabouts and even potentially on motorway junctions might be powered and illuminated in future By Nic Paton

t’s probably fair to say the roundabout at the junction of Stroud Road and New Wickham Lane in Surrey, just off the M25 near Egham, is unlikely to be a destination most drivers will specifically be tapping into their satnavs. However, for lighting professionals passing through, it is maybe one to keep an eye out for (while remaining mindful of road safety of course). This is because an innovative hybrid wind and solar lighting column has recently been located in the centre of the roundabout and is now powering the lighting for a number of its signs. The standalone DC 6m column delivers

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183 lumens per watt via a 12W driverless solution, has a marine-grade turbine on the top and, unusually, three vertical rather than horizontal solar panels. The column, developed by off-grid lighting specialist Kight, is part of a pilot by Surrey County Council to gauge whether this type of solution might be viable, and more environmentally friendly, than more conventional ways of powering and illuminating road signage. Andy Royce, street lighting manager at Surrey County Council, takes up the story. ‘We have a PFI contract with Milestone (formerly Skanska’s M Group) for our

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Street lighting street lighting, but the signs and bollards are not included within that. That has meant we have had a particular issue with being able to maintain the power at roundabouts, which of course can be especially vulnerable areas, for example if there is a crash and the power is taken out.’ The council therefore turned to Kight to develop a hybrid solar/wind street lighting column that could provide power to a multi-point off-grid solution. ‘It is providing off-grid power to various sign lights,’ explains Dan Goodman, sales director at Kight. ‘At the moment it is powering three signs, because that was the number of lantern heads available that we could use to fix gear trays to. But the column can easily power four and even more than that; it just depends on how we configure the actual solution.’

EASE OF MAINTENANCE

Conventionally in this sort of scenario you would have the DNO supplying power for the signage into a feeder pillar, via normal mains cabling, adds Andy. Using a solar/wind option should save on maintenance costs because of no longer needing to dig up the road in the event of an issue or fault arising. ‘It is about removing that risk of having to put significant traffic management out to excavate and replace services, as well as not needing to put guys out to that vulnerable location. This kit is transferable; it is implanted in a pot so we can remove it and replace it easily. Those future savings in maintenance make it attractive. Even though we haven’t quantified them particularly, it is just knowing they exist,’ says Andy. For installation, a normal hole was dug and concrete inserted. ‘We then put the column in a 200ml sleeve, planted it in, embedded sand into it, then concreted around the top, just above the cable holder. So it would be very easy to disconnect it; you’d just break the concrete, pull the column out and reinsert a new column within the sleeve,’ says Stuart Shand, operations manager for the Surrey/Milestone PFI contract. ‘It also ties in with the council’s carbon/ net zero by 2030 aspirations,’ says Andy. ‘In reality, the carbon saving is almost nothing but the fact it is something and is visible, and it is innovative and leads the way, is seen as a positive. Where we can take this technology is really quite exciting, I feel,’ he adds.

ADVANTAGE OF VERTICAL PANELS

The fact the solar panels are vertical rather than horizontal helps in terms of maintenance, highlights Dan. ‘It means the

The roundabout on Stroud Road and New Wickham Lane in Surrey showing (left) one of the illuminated signs close up with the new charging column behind it for context. Then (right) a close-up of the column showing the wind turbine and solar panels

panels don’t need cleaning at all. We’ve had them up for years already and none of them ever need cleaning. That might be slightly different in really hot countries; if there is not a lot of rain they may require cleaning. But because they are visible from the street, and you can reach them from the street level, you can take a simple squeegee that you use to clean normal windows and just clean it. The maintenance is extremely minimal. ‘In temperate climates, especially in winter, the sun is much lower in the sky, and so, actually, our solar panels positioned in this way are more efficient at absorbing solar radiation in times when there is much less available,’ he adds. The column has its own programmable solar charge controller, which manages the state of the lithium-ion battery and can stop input if it is full. If the turbine is spinning too fast, it can turn that off as well. ‘If the cloud cover goes below a certain lux level, the lights will come on, and when it clears they will go off again. And it won’t interfere with the evening programming either,’ Dan says.

The column was only installed in May and, while it is early days yet, the council is hopeful it is the sort of technology that could be more widely rolled out across Surrey, says Andy. ‘There is no reason, for example, why we couldn’t put a windmill/solar panel combination in the middle of a motorway junction. You can imagine putting out traffic management to get on to a motorway junction; it is a complete nightmare. But if we can power the half-a-dozen signs that are there via this sort of solution, that removes that risk completely. It is those high-value, high-risk locations where I really see the benefit of this,’ he explains. ‘It addresses the need to be keeping abreast of new technology. Also, it is about being aware of the environmental impacts, and the impacts the lighting industry has on other things. Another benefit for us has been that doing this project broken down some silos internally; we have been engaging with colleagues who may have a passion for, say, windmills, all of which allows creative thought; it has been a real thought provoker,’ says Andy.

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SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

WIRELESS WORSHIP S

t John the Baptist Church on Holland Road in west London is a Grade I listed church rooted between the urban landscapes of Shepherd’s Bush and Holland Park. It is an impressive example of Victorian Gothic Revival and was built in the 1870s by architect James Brooks. The lighting, however, had received very little attention over the years leaving the church with a failing, life-expired system with ever-present maintenance. Being church lighting specialists, we at CES Lighting were approached to provide a flexible new lighting design that would address the requirements for the everyday running of services and events along with emphasising the architecture of this venerable listed building. The church was also concerned with its carbon footprint and looking for a new lighting system that was more carbon responsible and energy efficient to help reach the Church of England’s target for net zero carbon emissions by 2030. www.theilp.org.uk

By David Burch

HIGHLIGHTING CHARACTER

Switching to LED and a wireless control system has transformed the venerable Grade I listed St John the Baptist Church in west London. As with any heritage site, however, getting from aspiration to reality needed to done in very careful, considered, collaborative steps

We worked closely with the client and current church architect to design a new LED scheme that was able to use much of the existing wiring where appropriate to do so, thus minimising labour costs and impact on the fabric of the building. Great care had to be taken to ensure that all new lighting did not interrupt or detract from the architecture but enhanced the character of the church. Almost all of the luminaires feature the Xicato Artist Series of modules, which renders the full spectrum visible light/colours accurately (TM-30-18). This is of vital importance when highlighting painted features such as the Nave’s spectacular angel corbels (as shown above). A colour temperature of 2700K (in other words, warm white) was selected throughout to warm the church and complement its stone construction. The existing pendants suspended in the Nave were sent away, gutted and refurbished with modern LED technologies; a small unseen fitting was also located on top

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

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Distinctive Products, Outstanding Service 01623 415900 | sales@kingfisherlighting.com www.kingfisherlighting.com www.theilp.org.uk

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Church lighting suitable for the church’s current and future needs. Therefore, while, as I say, we retained existing wiring where it was appropriate to do so, overall it was decided the most flexibility would come through installation of a wireless control scheme. Handily, the Xicato modules each have a wireless chip. These chips all communicate to one another and so allowed us to create a robust mesh network via a single control plate located at the west of the church to activate all the lights. The control plate has eight simple buttons each with a preset lighting scenario ready for a function of the church. The church team has full control over the lighting scenarios and can adjust as required.

SUMMARY

The new lighting scheme in St John the Baptist Church, west London. Photographs by David Burch and Nikhilesh Haval

of each pendant to capture and highlight the angel figurines. A new range of architectural LED luminaires from Stoane Lighting was installed throughout to provide focus to service-leading areas along with various other architectural features. Each fitting was carefully specified to be as discreet as possible, each RAL coloured to match the surrounding church fabric, for example, and with the correct beam angle for its www.theilp.org.uk

purpose and suitable anti-glare accessory. Track and surface-mount variations were also used. In the interest of simplification and ease of maintenance the system is run, for the most part, at a low voltage 48v supply. This allows for fewer electronic components throughout the building and the power supply units are all contained to a few accessible areas. The brief was to create a flexible system

All in all, we felt this was a very successful project. A modern, energy efficient, flexible lighting system was introduced for an affordable budget, one that now allows the church to create many different and dynamic environments for its various services and other in-church gatherings. The use of simple wireless control has allowed for one-switch operation of all the lighting, which can also provide an element of intrigue when the lighting is transitioned from a low level with focus on the pulpit to a bright level. One final important point to mention is that all of us – St John the Baptist Church, CES, Stoane Lighting – worked to circular economy principles on this scheme. Stoane Lighting has agreed to support repair or remanufacture for 25 years. The pendants were remanufactured with modern technology, not only preserving materials that otherwise would have been, at best, recycled (losing their original value in the process) or, at worst, sent to landfill. In addition, a spotlight was incorporated to light up the angles cantilevered above without recourse to new fixings or wiring. Up and downlighting are independently switchable thanks to the Bluetooth control. Let’s leave the final word to Neil Traynor, associate vicar at St John the Baptist Church: ‘The lighting is looking stunning; it really does bring out the important elements of the building. We used the lighting for the first time in our All Souls service. We began with the congregation entering with just the pendants (at a low level); when the new lighting was turned on there was an audible gasp and round of applause – the congregation was impressed.’

David Burch BA Hons MSLL is lighting designer with CES Lighting

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SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

AN HOMAGE TO GAS LIGHTING

Predominant in the nineteenth century, overtaken in the twentieth, gas lighting has nevertheless hung on in our public realm, and is much-valued for its ambience, quality of light and sense of connection to the past. Christopher Sugg, great, great, great grandson of gas lighting pioneer Thomas Sugg, looks back at its history and reflects on its lasting popularity By Christopher Sugg

he history of gas lighting has been written many times by many different authors – it is a subject that, if you are not careful, you can definitely get lost in! Suffice to say, the origins of gas lighting go back hundreds, if not thousands, of years, with the first gas lighting (probably) originating in China where people observed natural gases from the ground having (again probably) been lit by lightning. In Wigan, pioneer Thomas Shirley recorded his observations of gas issuing from the ground and being lit as far back as 1659 while, in 1688, the Reverend Clayton demonstrated the production of coal gas by using a kettle to heat coal over a fire and then lighting the gas that issued from the spout to entertain visitors. It is not until 1792, however, when William Murdoch was producing light from coal gas and lighting his room in Redruth, Cornwall, that we are, in my view, really talking about gas lighting, with Murdoch very much seen as the father of gas lighting. Murdoch was a remarkable engineer, as he was primarily involved in the development of steam engines. He worked for a company called Boulton & Watt and in 1792 used a retort – a cast-iron equivalent of the kettle stuck on top of a fire in his back garden – to release gas from coal, which he then fed into a series of burners in his living room and lit. Although he immediately saw the commercial potential of this new energy, and light, source, at the time Boulton & Watt was not interested and told him to stick with railways and steam engines. Eventually, however, the company did cotton on to its potential and Murdoch began to light factories, with their owners realising that, suddenly, you could extend working hours and provide a better and safer environment for workers. It was around this point that my great, great, great

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William Murdoch lighting his gas lights in his house in Redruth in 1792

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Gas lighting

The 1988 original Westminster lantern (version three), with Christopher Sugg for scale

grandfather Thomas Sugg arrived on the scene. He was an ironmonger and lived about three miles away from where Frederick Winsor, a German entrepreneur (his name was originally Freidrich Winzer) was demonstrating gas lighting to the curious public at the Lyceum Theatre. Thomas’ part in the story was to make and fit the pipes for a display in 1807 of a ‘great length of lamps, similar to the side of a street, at a considerable distance from the carbonizing furnace. This experiment was made on the wall which separates the Mall in St James’s Park from Carlton House Gardens.’[1] This, in time led to the formation of the Gas Light & Coke Company in 1812 and to that of William Sugg & Co in 1837 by Thomas’ son, William, both based in Westminster with the company name continuing today and, indeed, being the only surviving British gas lighting business that still manufactures genuine gas lamps, as Lighting Journal reported last year (‘Victorian heritage’, May 2020, vol 85, no 5). In 1812 Frederick Winsor, succeeded in securing a royal charter for his Gas Light and

An illustration of some of the Christiana burners

Coke Company and gas street lighting began to take off commercially, with Westminster (where the company was located) being the first area of London to be lit.

THREE HEYDAYS

From here on, gas lighting rapidly became ever-more commonplace on our streets with, to my mind, three of what we might call ‘heydays’. The first was simply the transition of our streets and highways from gloom to light. The improvements it brought were fantastic; the development and expansion of gas lighting from the early nineteenth century onwards allowed everything else to grow: traffic and commerce and so on. Gas lighting at this point was all open flame and varied hugely in the size of the flame depending upon the hole size and the pressure. This created a commercial challenge because the gas company needed to know how much its customers were using to be able to charge them. At the beginning the only thing they could charge on was the ‘number of lights’ and

clearly the volume was not in their control. This made the development of gas meters an important and early advance, but they were still classified by the number of lights they could feed. In fact, right up to the days of electronic meters they were still known by the number of lights they could feed. So, you had a 15-light meter and so on; it was very much a carry-over from the earliest days of gas. The second heyday was the large lantern, some of which were 6ft tall and 4ft 6in across, so they were absolutely huge. Very large decorative ones were commonly used on pubs but street lighting was also done with huge lanterns, and the amount of gas now being consumed was amazing. Whilst gas lighting was first applied to street lighting it was not long before simple interior lights followed. By the second half of the nineteenth century interior gas lighting had developed from a simple wall bracket to exotic chandeliers. The increasing decorative nature embraced by William Sugg meant that he offered a huge range of glass, hand painted in France where he also had a showroom. www.theilp.org.uk

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Gas lighting

An illustration of the Cromartie Medina lamps (6ft and 10ft)

His son, David, introduced the Cromartie recuperative lamp, which utilised a patent inverted burner the heat from which preheated the gas coming down the pipe to improve the light. They won great acclaim but were hugely expensive, as much as £1,200 today. The grand houses might have fabulous fixtures in the living rooms whilst the kitchen and the maid’s quarters still had flickering, badly maintained single gas jets. The third heyday of gas lighting was the arrival of the gas mantle, which was invented in 1880 but did not become widespread until the 1900s onwards. The use of a mantle improved the performance and efficiency of gas lighting to such an extent that, even though electricity was arriving on the scene by this point, it gave it another 50 years of predominance, pretty much up to the Second World War.

TRANSITION TO ELECTRIC

We often assume electricity immediately overtook gas, but it was a much more gradual transition than that. The gas lighting

industry, after all, was a hundred years old by this point, while electricity as an industry started off very small. Also, you could see, feel and smell gas, you could see how you could store it, but what was this electric stuff? It took the development of the glow lamp, the bulb and a filament that didn’t burn away before electricity really began to take off. Very often, in fact, you will see pictures of early electric arc lamps in position, and working, but the gas lamps are still there, and still lit. So it was for a time a strange, dual situation.

HERITAGE POPULARITY

In 1953 it was estimated there were 621,369 gas lamps in operation. By 1956 this had reduced to 529,876, with the decline accelerating. Yet, despite having been superseded technologically – especially with the arrival now of LED – gas lighting has never disappeared completely and, in fact, remains stubbornly popular. Why? I think it is very much like being a steam

[1] This quotation is taken from my website on the history of William Sugg & Co, which has much more detail about the formation of the company, and the history of lighting in general. Go to https://williamsugghistory.co.uk/the-first-experiment-of-the-public-use-of-gas-lights-in-1807/

www.theilp.org.uk

railway enthusiast. Steam trains are slow and smelly; if you want to get from A to B quickly there are many more efficient ways of doing so. Why would anybody want to go in an old railway carriage behind a noisy old, steam engine? But we do. Gas lighting, to my mind, is similar; it produces an ambience and atmosphere that people like. It is wonderful to go round London and see all the gas lighting. You can walk around Covent Garden, for example, and the gas lamps are – and look – amazing. Outside the UK, gas lighting is considered a heritage worth preserving in many countries. Prague, for example, has growing gas lighting installation with remote switching, with the option of being lit by a lamp-lighter, who is followed by a crowd to see and enjoy the process of lighting the lamps. It has long been an important aspect of heritage in Germany, too, where there have always been a huge number of gas lamps; a fund has even been established recently to support its gas street lighting. There are, of course, environmental arguments against the continuing use of gas lighting, which we should very much listen and respond to. Yet, I would also argue that the amount of gas consumed by a gas lamp is tiny by comparison with a gas cooker or central heating boiler. You can run between 20 and 100 gas lights, depending on the number of mantles, with the same amount of gas as a single gas boiler. Finally, what of the future of gas lighting? Gas lighting’s continuing heritage popularity will, I suspect, mean it won’t disappear completely. Gas lighting illuminates heritage buildings in the way they were originally meant to be lit; heritage buildings are not meant to be lit by huge, bright lights. In the future, too, it would be interesting to see if it is possible to produce a gas mantle by, say, 3D printing with a suitable material that could be made to incandesce, so providing the holy grail of the ever-lasting mantle. When gas was made from coal, 50% of it was hydrogen. So, I am also convinced it would be perfectly reasonable to run gas lamps on hydrogen. We have the chance, if there is somebody prepared to do it, of trying to make an ever-lasting gas mantle, something I feel could be a real game-changer for gas lighting. You can then have your traditional lamp, you can run it on hydrogen and you can say, ‘here we have a 200-yearold technology, why throw it away?’.

Christopher Sugg, now retired, is the former chairman of Sugg Lighting and now acts as an historic adviser to William Sugg & Co

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

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SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

CELEBRATING

COLOUR The ILP’s second ‘How to be brilliant’ event of 2021 saw acclaimed artist Liz West unpick her method and her artistic vision, in the process explaining how she arrives at her spectacular, immersive, colour- and light-based installations By Nic Paton

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

The ILP’s How to be brilliant

he ILP’s ‘How to be brilliant’ events give junior members of the lighting community or those new to the industry a chance to connect with an inspiring expert who will talk about lighting in a way formal education does not necessarily cover. This year’s programme of events, sponsored by Premier member BEGA and currently being held digitally, kicked off in March when David Gilbey, founder of d-lighting, spoke on the topic of ‘How to be brilliant at telling stories with light’ (‘Story-telling, brilliantly’, April 2021, vol 86, n0 4). Acclaimed artist Liz West followed this in May with the second talk of 2021: ‘How to be brilliant at celebrating colour’. What follows is a brief overview of her talk, although the full event is still able to viewed online, and details on how to access this are at the end. Liz is known for creating immersive environments that mix luminous colour and radiant light but, as she made clear, finding her artistic voice was not something that happened overnight. Liz recounted her childhood in Barnsley, Yorkshire with two artist parents. ‘It was unusual to have that situation growing up; other children would come back from school for a tea and would be surprised to see my dad’s little nude figurative sculptures around the house or my mum’s architectural paintings,’ she said. ‘Cuartors and other art professionals always attended dinner parties at home, there were also art books, music; it was a really nurturing, creative environment to be in. There was no wonder that I went to art school, as did my brother. There was no question of what I would do as a career; I was never repelled by the art world, I have firsthand experience of it and therefore saw it for its warts and all,’ she added. She went to Glasgow School of Art where, she freely admitted, she made ‘awful work for two-and-a-half years’. As she added: ‘I really didn’t know what I was interested in. I had the mentality of ticking boxes; I wanted to get good grades. It didn’t occur to me that what I really had to pursue were my passions, my interests. When I started making work about my innate passions and interests, then the world lit up for me. ‘I was always a super-sensory person, taking in all everything around me I was lucky to be taken to lots of museums and galleries, and the artwork I loved the most were complete environments and immersive installations, rather than paintings or sculpture,’ she said.

FUNDED BY THE SPICE GIRLS (SORT OF)

One little known fact about Liz is that she is in the book of Guinness World Records but not, curiously, for her art. As a child she’d been an avid fan of the pop group the Spice

Girls and started collecting their memorabilia, a hobby that just grew and grew and is now classed as the biggest Spice Girls collection in the world. ‘I hire it out to museums; it helped fund the start of my artistic practice,’ she explained. ‘I was able to use it to fund the start of my career and move to Manchester. Because of it, I never had to take on other jobs or teaching art like my parents did. I could focus solely on my practice and developing different ideas, knowing that my Spice Girls collection was funding it, initially. Certainly girl power!’

Opposite: Liz West on ‘Hundreds and Thousands’ (2021) on The Tide at Greenwich Peninsula. Image by Charles Emerson. Top: ‘Our Colour Reflection’ (2016), image by Hannah Devereux. Bottom: another perspective on ‘Hundreds and Thousands’, image again by Charles Emerson

Liz’s first solo exhibition took place in Manchester in July 2012, a debut from which she never looked back as her career and notoriety as an artist accelerated. ‘Why colour? I am passionate about it, it is in my DNA,’ she explained. ‘It is everywhere in my life, I see it everywhere. Using colour in space is something you don’t experience www.theilp.org.uk

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

The ILP’s How to be brilliant

every day; it is extraordinary. So, in creating artworks like this you are removing people from their everyday and putting them into an otherworldly environment, which you so rarely have and which we so need for our wellbeing.’ In 2015, as part of the UNESCO International Year of Light, Liz created ‘An Additive Mix’ as part of the ‘Light Fantastic’ exhibition at the National Science & Media Museum in Bradford. ‘I remember having a conversation with the curator, sharing with them feedback from my 2007 degree show which was that people wanted to be inside the mirrored room I had created but couldn’t because it was only viewable through an aperture in the wall, in essence an illusion. ‘I thought, “with this exhibition I can give people the opportunity to be inside the space”. I filled a purpose-built 10m x 5m room clad with mirrors and lit overhead with 250 6ft fluorescent lamps, all in a different hues collectively creating white light. Concepts of the science of light and colour theory came together in this work and gave my practice an underlying and recurring theme. Every piece I make derives from colour theory or the science of light. This piece in particular, took that notion of additive mixing and making this phenomena a spectacle,’ she said. That same year, 2015, she presented her first outdoor work, ‘Through No. 3’. ‘For a long time, I had been nervous of making a www.theilp.org.uk

piece harnessing sunlight. I was completely obsessed and familiar with artificial light, its vibrancy, its luminescence, and its intenseness. In making this public realm commission, I decided I didn’t want to plonk something on a plinth. If I was going to put something in the public realm people had to be able to enter into it; it had to be immersive. ‘My original drawings were for tunnels with the coloured panels attached to the roof and sides. It was through collaborative conversations with my fabricators that the structural issue of snow loading on the roof of the tunnel was going to be a problem. However, if we made the tunnel into a prism then we were not going to have any snow-loading issues. ‘Making it a prism instantly made me think of Isaac Newton’s theories about seeing the spectral colours unfold by looking through a prism. It was all connected to light and colour theory,’ she explained.

VISION AND PROCESS

Liz then talked through the vision, thinking and process, including original drawings, behind some of her other works and installations. For ‘Our Colour Reflection’ (2016-2020), a modular site-responsive indoor work, its location at, firstly the 20-21 Visual Arts Centre in Scunthorpe and then St Mark’s

Left: ‘Through No 3’ (2015). Image by MDP Photography. Right: ‘Hundreds and Thousands’ (2021). Image by Charles Emerson

Church in Mayfair, London, was challenging. ‘This was a tricky brief because I wasn’t allowed to fix anything to floor, walls or ceiling because of the heritage of the space. Making this modular work has worked out well because the work has toured around the world. It is has been to Bangalore, Berlin – where it was lit with artificial light and completely changed it. At the beginning of this year it was in Finland in a white cube gallery space, which changed its aesthetic once again. ‘The title has a double meaning. It is literal. You are seeing your reflection in the coloured discs and therefore the space around you and your eyes are being taken to parts of the space that you might not ordinarily notice, and that is something I always try and do with my work. But the title of the work is also reflective and meditative. ‘From a personal point of view, this is the last piece my dad ever saw before he, sadly, passed away from cancer back in 2016. Frustratingly, when he saw this piece in the Arts Centre, in Scunthorpe, it was not a sunny day, and it was not bouncing orbs of colour around the space, like you can see in this picture. I remember him saying to me, “Liz, it’s not working”, and I was like, “no, I can’t

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The ILP’s How to be brilliant

control everything”. So there are a lot of connections to this piece for me, and I just wish he could have seen what happened next.’

COLOUR THEORY AND SCIENCE

‘Our Spectral Vision’ (2016) was commissioned by the Natural History Museum in London as part of its ‘Colour and Vision’ exhibition. ‘This piece was the first thing people saw when they entered the exhibition, the brief was for the work to reference notions of biological science and colour theory; Isaac Newton’s theories came to mind again,’ she explained. This modular indoor work creates a vivid immersive environment by mixing luminous colour and radiant light, using a mixture of LED lamps and dichroic glass in the form of seven prisms. The aim, Liz explained, was to echo the iridescence seen in nature, especially in butterflies and birds through the use of light and colour. Liz then discussed ‘Colour Transfer’ (2018), a permanent artwork spanning the underside of Paddington Central’s Westway Bridge commissioned by British Land. This comprises multiple-angled coloured mirrors vertically spanning the height of the brickwork to create an optically vibrant and www.theilp.org.uk

kaleidoscopic installation. The colours in the work change depending on where you are within the tunnel, so appearing different from one direction to the other. The mirrors are positioned in a spectral arrangement running from dark red to pale pink when entering the underpass from the left and the opposite when entering from the right. The effect, therefore, is fluctuating colour and reflections created by the mirrors. ‘Colour and light are so dynamic. Our eyes are the most amazing technology you could ever wish for. And so any photograph or video you make of the work is never going to be as dynamic and changeable as what you experience in person with dynamic light conditions and the changing seasons,’ Liz explained. Liz then concluded with one of her latest works, ‘Hundreds and Thousands’ (2021) for The Tide, the elevated riverside linear park on Greenwich Peninsula in London. This artwork wraps 700m of the walkway’s glass balustrades, creating a ribbon of undulating colour. As Liz added: ‘I had to make a sundial on the Greenwich meridian line; I felt it would be crazy not to. The glass offered a vast

Left: ‘Our Colour Reflection’ (2016). Right: ‘Our Spectral Vision’ (2016). Both images by Hannah Devereux

expansive canvas, that I could cover with colour, which is either reflected in rain puddles or by the sunshine and, by nature, becomes a sundial because of the way the sun moves around the space.’

FIND OUT MORE

To watch the full video from Liz’s presentation go to https://theilp.org.uk/ events/how-to-be-brilliant/ The next virtual ‘How to be brilliant’ talk will take place this month, on 24 September at 1pm, and will explore London’s Illuminated River public art project, with Jonathan Gittins and Elga Neimann from Atelier Ten. More details can be found at the same address: https://theilp.org.uk/ events/how-to-be-brilliant Our thanks again to Premier member BEGA for sponsoring these sessions.

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

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SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Legal issues

RISK AND RETURN Most of the time on contracts, a lighting professional will simply be supplying services to a primary client. But on large, complex projects especially there may be third parties who you also need to keep happy, such as developers and investors. Managing risks and liabilities around such ‘third-party rights’ can be a complex legal balancing act

By Howard Crossman and George Elliman

n a typical construction project, lighting consultants or sub-contractors may supply services to the client under their primary contract/appointment. This document will create a direct contractual relationship between the consultant and the client and enforceable rights and obligations will

www.theilp.org.uk

arise under it. Because of the concept of ‘privity of contract’, only the parties to that contract can acquire those rights and obligations. However, in a more complex construction project, there may be, for example, funder involvement or an intention for the developer client to sell the completed

development (or ‘pre-packed’ development land) to an eventual end user. This creates a potential class of people who do not have a contractual relationship with the consultant but will nevertheless want to be able to rely on the services carried out, or any report prepared, by the consultant. This is where so-called

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Legal issues

IN MOST CASES, LIABILITIES TO THIRD PARTIES WILL NOT BE ENTIRELY AVOIDABLE BUT, IN THEORY, THE EXTENT OF POSSIBLE LIABILITY IS ‘NEGOTIABLE’ ‘third-party rights’ come in and can cause a headache. This article intends to examine the various ways third-party rights can be built into a construction project. How these various options might affect the risk a consultant, such as a lighting professional, takes on. What practical steps can therefore be taken to manage these risks at the point of negotiation. And how best to balance this risk management with the commercial realities. Third-party rights typically come in two forms: a collateral warranty or a ‘letter of reliance’. Let’s look at each. • A collateral warranty. This is a document that acts as an extension of the primary contract where the ‘warrantor’ (in other words, the consultant) will warrant to the beneficiary (in other words, the purchaser/tenant/ funder) that it has complied with and/or will comply with the terms of the primary contract. This is more common and preferable where there is already a primary contract in place, or where the services include materially important/design responsibility. • A letter of reliance. This is a standalone agreement, usually in the form of a letter, between the consultant and the purchaser/tenant/ funder. Its basic essence is that it says to the third party: ‘you can rely on our report dated x’. This is more common where the consultant has only gone as far as to provide a report, or where the services are more peripheral/ unrelated to the design. Regardless of which route applies to a consultant, the fundamental consideration for consultants is always going to be: ‘how far can we limit our liabilities to suit our commercial needs?’. www.theilp.org.uk

Both of these documents are, in most cases, negotiable – but not excessively so. Negotiating strength, including the size and reputation of the consultant, is also going to play a part here. The commercial reality of winning work and performing services on large projects invariably means there will likely be a requirement to provide some form of third-party rights beyond the direct client. The key for any consultant is to proactively manage your liability at every stage of an appointment.

MANAGING RISK AND LIMITING LIABILITY

The starting point for managing liability is in the primary contract. The terms that are negotiated and agreed here will frame the number of warranties/letters of reliance that will be provided. However, the liability to third parties will also often mirror the terms of the primary contract as a starting point. With this in mind, prudent liability management should be at the forefront of a consultant’s mind when negotiating the terms of the primary contract. Important considerations here will therefore need to include: • Does the contract include an acceptable value cap on liability, covering ‘all claims’ as opposed to ‘each and every’ claim? This is distinct from the professional indemnity (PI) level, which alone is not a limit on liability (although thought should clearly be given to whether the PI expectations are commercially viable). • Does the contract include an acceptable time limit for any liability, ideally from the date the services and/ or the report is delivered? • Does the contract include a net contribution clause (NCC) to limit liability where other parties are also liable to the client? NCCs are often a contentious negotiating point, but successfully including a welldrafted NCC will prevent the consultant being liable for an entire claim where responsibility is shared. • Are indirect and consequential losses excluded? A consultant will not want to be liable for losses that are remote from the services provided. • Does the contract specify what collateral warranties/letters of reliance will need to be provided? Can this be limited to, for example, the first purchaser?

Or can it be limited to a maximum number of third parties? The important consideration here is to avoid highly open-ended requirements. Beyond the primary contract, the wording of warranties/letters of reliance to third parties may also be negotiated (if possible) to mitigate the risk to the consultant. In the case of warranties, these will typically include what is known as a ‘no greater duty’ clause. This has the effect of expressly confirming that the consultant’s obligations to the beneficiary can go no further than under the primary contract. The other important considerations to bear in mind for both potential documents are many of the same negotiation points as outlined above for the primary contract. What is the limitation date on the warranty/reliance letter? Can a shorter period than the statutory six years be agreed? Does the document include an NCC, a value limitation of liability and/ or an exclusion of certain types of liability? Can the collateral warranty or letter of reliance be assigned and how many times? And is there scope to limit this? Are the professional indemnity expectations commercially acceptable?

FINAL THOUGHTS

In most cases, liabilities to third parties will not be entirely avoidable but, in theory, the extent of possible liability that a consultant could be exposed to is ‘negotiable’ insofar as the points above can be worked into a contract and any warranty/letter of reliance. All of these points should be in a consultant’s mind when negotiating their appointment on projects, especially those that are large/complex with potentially high-value liability. As always, the relative negotiating strength of the client/consultant/third party will always be dominant when we talk about how possible amendment is. Finally, as ever, if you have any doubt about the terms of an appointment and/ or liability to third parties, advice should be sought from a legal advisor.

Howard Crossman (hcrossman@greenwoodsgrm. co.uk) is head of construction and George Elliman is a solicitor at Greenwoods GRM. With offices in London, Cambridge and Peterborough, Greenwoods GRM is a UK commercial law firm providing legal advice and pragmatic solutions to local, national and international clients.

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SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

‘THE ILP HAS NOT STOPPED

BECAUSE OF THE PANDEMIC...

‘THE “CHALLENGE OF CHANGE” THAT I SEE FOR THE ILP AS WE COME OUT OF THE PANDEMIC IS TO ACHIEVE AN ALL-INCLUSIVE PROFESSIONAL COMMUNITY. ONE OF THE STRENGTHS OF THE INSTITUTION IS THE OPPORTUNITIES IT PROVIDES FOR MEMBERS TO MAKE CONNECTIONS AND BETTER THEIR KNOWLEDGE THROUGH CPD.’ FIONA HORGAN, ILP PRESIDENT

would like to acknowledge how proud I am to become the 90th president of The Institution of Lighting Professionals. It is not under normal circumstances, becoming President in a pandemic, as we face a challenging recovery. As only the second female president and the first of the YLP to step up to President, I

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Inside the ILP

... IN FACT WE CONTINUE TO BUILD’ The ILP held its annual general meeting in June, virtually again because of the pandemic, where Fiona Horgan stepped up to become President, taking over from Anthony Smith. Here are edited extracts from both their presentations By Fiona Horgan

am humbled at the support from the membership, LDCs, VPs, the YLP and our various committees. I believe in strength in numbers and no ‘I’ in team, so I would like the membership to join me in thanking our volunteers for their continued hard work under the difficult circumstances of the last year. I am positive we will continue to build great working partnerships with all involved to make the ILP’s recovery one where our Institution continues to achieve its strategic vision of promoting better lighting for all. I ask the membership to join me in a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to Anthony Smith for his hard work as President under the most difficult circumstances. I personally thank Anthony for supporting me in my progression to President and sharing his true passion for the lighting industry. I would also like to thank my employer, Doncaster Council, and my lighting team for their support for me on this journey; it is key as local authorities that we are represented within the industry. I would like to thank the Executive Board, Chief Executive Tracey White and all the Presidents over the seven years I have been on board for all their guidance. The whole Executive Board would like to thank Tracey as she departs from the

ILP and wish her well in sunnier climes. Tracey brought fresh thinking and an outward-looking approach to the Institution, something I hope to continue with a new Chief Executive.

HYBRID FUTURE

Virtual working has become the norm for many and has opened up new possibilities for our members, who before could not be there in person, as well as our virtual groups being an area of comfort for people often working alone. This is in part down to our great staff team behind the scenes, so I cannot forget our thanks to the brilliant team at Rugby. ‘Hi Lights’, for example, has been a huge success. It continues to grow in popularity and will continue as we move forward with our recovery to support members. CPD and training has also moved successfully to online platforms but, once it is safe to do so, we will resume in-person CPD and training delivery locally, nationally and internationally in line with government guidance. Going forward, a new hybrid approach will allow both in-person and virtual meetings of CPD and informal discussions. This will strengthen and build our growing community and, yes, we have grown – one positive over the last year is the number of new people who have connected with us from around the globe and now look to the ILP as a source of professional support. The ILP has not stopped because of the pandemic, in fact, we continue to build on our key initiatives:

• Setting standards for good practice • Developing professional knowledge and skills • Education and training Our recovery post-pandemic will be a new challenge but, it is fair to say, the ILP’s initiatives to date have proven the successes we can achieve together and are a testament to our professionalism.

ALL-INCLUSIVE COMMUNITY

To quote Martin Luther King Jnr: ‘Our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.’ The ‘challenge of change’ that I see for the ILP as we come out of the pandemic is to achieve an all-inclusive professional community. One of the strengths of the Institution is the opportunities it provides for members to make connections and better their knowledge through CPD. I ask the wider membership to be patient, to allow time for our recovery but also continue to voice your support for the good work done by our staff and volunteers. Finally, I would like to say ‘stay safe’, and I look forward to seeing you all when it is right to do so.

Fiona Horgan is President of the ILP and senior engineer at Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council

www.theilp.org.uk

SEPTEMBER 2021 LIGHTING JOURNAL

Inside the ILP

‘I AM INCREDIBLY PROUD OF THE ROLE I’VE PLAYED IN TRYING TO HELP THE ILP THROUGH WHAT HAS BEEN AN UNPRECEDENTED SITUATION’

By Anthony Smith

Premier Member Advertorial

couple of years ago I was really proud to take up the role of President of the ILP, at the Newcastle Professional Lighting Summit, which was the last really big face-to-face event we had. It was well-attended and I really enjoyed it. When I took that role on, I thought I would have the opportunity to travel round the LDCs and to meet up with people, to be that face and link to the ILP. Unfortunately, that didn’t really happen because of Covid, and for the vast majority of my time I have not been able to be that ambassador to the ILP that I had hoped to be. I am incredibly proud of the role I’ve played in trying to help the ILP through what has been a fairly unprecedented situation, trying to deal with a global pandemic. The main thing this has shown me is that we do have an excellent volunteer force. The Executive Board has met, effectively, twice as much as it would normally have done

through the entirety of Covid, even though that has been quite a time commitment and onerous for those who have ‘day jobs’. I would therefore personally like to thank all of the Executive Board for the time and support. I would also like to thank Colin Fish and ILP Chief Executive Tracey White for their guidance and challenge over the last couple of years. It would have been a much harder time for me if both of them hadn’t been keeping me right and giving me their advice. The VPs, too, have been excellent; I can’t laud them enough.

PUNCHING ABOVE OUR WEIGHT

The LDCs have reacted really well to the challenges of the pandemic. In my local LDC, for example, we’ve been having online meetings instead of face to face, and the reaction has been excellent across the board. All of the volunteers should be applauded. The ILP team at Rugby has been what has made the whole situation of Covid work for

the ILP. The work put in by the staff has been absolutely amazing; the amount of things we have delivered from a standing start shouldn’t be under-estimated. It has been absolutely fantastic; we’ve punched well above our weight as a result. They’ve shown flexibility, creativity and professionalism through the whole thing. I would like to congratulate Rebecca Hatch on her appointment as Senior Vice President and Perry Hazell on his as Junior Vice President. I am sure they will both be real assets to the ILP and bringing new young blood on to the board is no bad thing. Finally, of course, I would like to congratulate Fiona Horgan for taking over the role of President from me. I am sure she will do a great job, and I look forward to working with her and supporting her over the next year. Anthony Smith IEng FILP is Immediate Past President of the ILP and director of Stainton Lighting Design

Festive Isolator Offer Go www.theilp.org.uk

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