Light pollution

The Council can investigate complaints of disturbance caused by artificial light. We can take action where light pollution prevents you using or enjoying your home.

Preventing light nuisance

If artificial light coming from your neighbour’s property is causing you a problem, the best approach may be to talk politely to them about it. You could perhaps offer to show them how disturbing the light is to you by showing them from your property.

If this approach is not successful, or you feel it is not appropriate, you can contact Environmental Health, who will investigate the matter for you.

What we can do to help

We can take action to help resolve the matter if we find the light is causing a statutory nuisance. The law sets out guidelines for what a statutory nuisance is. For the Council to take action, we need to have evidence the nuisance is affecting your health or seriously interfering with your daily life.

How to avoid creating light pollution

When you install any external lighting to your own property, take a moment to think about how it may affect your neighbours. Security lights do not actually need to be very bright to be effective. A 150-watt tungsten halogen lamp is quite adequate and 300 or 500-watt bulbs are too powerful for domestic security lighting.

Consider the angle of the light unit to prevent light spilling onto your neighbour’s property. You can also use shades, so that you only direct the light to the areas where needed.

You can control lights with a sensor or time switch, so you only turn them on when needed. This will not only help prevent nuisance, but it will also keep running costs down.