The lights were switched off on 10th December 2010, 10 weeks ago and it does not appear Biggleswade Town Council have made any attempt to resolve the problems, and switch them on again. The lights were switched off under threat from Central Bedfordshire Council, Planning Enforcement as Biggleswade Town Council could not, after five months of trying, get the lights to comply with the times in the planning permission."The lighting hereby permitted shall at no time be switched on between the hours of 8.00 pm to 7.00 am."
They were in fact, on all night at one stage, and after a number of attempts to resolve the problem were on until around midnight and back on again at 5.00am in the morning.
It should be remembered that these lights were provided for school children coming and going to school during the winter, on the basis that some children may be in school after normal hours, for outside activities and clubs. The provision of the lighting was very much supported by the schools. The timing of the lighting was decided on the basis that it would only be switched on when required by the school children. This would ensure that there would be no light pollution from the columns closest to residential properties during the late evening and night time hours. The Architectural Liaison Officer from Bedfordshire Police supported the principle of extinguishing the lights at an appropriate time in order to discourage youths gathering.
Timer switches are very tricky, especially when you have speculative, unrealistic planning applications to prepare, submit, resubmit without dealing with the issues raised in response to your first submission, write to the local paper about a prospective (and pointless) appeal against the decision to refuse your speculative and unrealistic planning application for a health centre that it isn't your job to provide on land that you don't own...
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