Radio 4 Living and Light
Sedbergh Parish Council were pleased to take part in Radio 4's recent article on Living and Light - featured on Sunday 21 December 2025. The Parish Council were invited to speak, following their project to improve street lighting in collaboration with The Friends of the Lake District.
Published: 23 December 2025
Listen here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002ntr3
Below, is an extract from Friends of the Lake District’s news release (2024)
New environmental dark sky friendly lights have been installed around the Town of Sedbergh. All are modern energy efficient LEDs, most have slimline light heads with four in a heritage style on brackets in the Town Centre.
The Parish Council was concerned at the rising cost of its footway lights, with electricity prices shooting up and with some older lights requiring more money being spent on maintenance.
Situated in the Yorkshire Dales National Park ‘Dark Sky Reserve’, the Parish Council worked with Friends of the Lake District’s (FLD) Dark Skies Officer, who with Cumbria County (now Westmorland and Furness) Council’s lighting officers, helped assess and identify the new lighting.
The light beams are much better directed to light path and road surfaces, rather than wasting light up into the sky. Their warm colour temperature of 2,200 Kelvin are less glaring on people’s eye and less harmful to all the wildlife active overnight. To help save electricity, cut carbon emissions, and support wildlife needs, the lights dim by 50% after 9pm, and then 100% between 12pm to 6am, called a part-night switch off.
Steven Longlands, Sedbergh Parish Councillor helping the project, said: “Working all together made this happen. Special thanks to our Clerk, Friends of the Lake District, the Council’s Lighting Team, the main funder the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority Sustainable Development Fund, and Cumbria Action for Sustainability’s Community Climate Grant. Funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, part of the Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership’s ambitious emission reduction programme to make Cumbria carbon neutral by 2037. The funders recognised our leadership with this lighting project linked to helping reduce Sedbergh’s carbon footprint.”
With public finances decreasing and electricity energy prices only going up further, more and more Councils are looking at these types of lighting to reduce resource consumption. Although there is no legal public duty to provide lighting, well placed lights do help to give us a sense of safety on paths and ginnels after dark.
Friends of the Lake District’s Dark Skies Officer, Jack Ellerby, said: “It makes no sense to have lights on all night when roads are empty, and plenty of research shows that wildlife needs darkness to thrive. These new lights in Sedbergh follow similar smaller projects in Lorton and Patterdale in the Lake District, and Dent the adjoining Parish are installing similar ones gradually when budgets allow. Sedbergh Council have been a delight to work with and we hope it inspires other communities to act, and that other lights installed in the Town are equally sympathetic.”
The Project concluded in 2024 and following an updated audit of the street lights, the Council were able to have their unmetered supply annual consumption reassessed (EAC) again. Originally, the consumption had been certified at 9283 kWh, this was reconsidered in 2022 and reduced to 4590 following an update on some existing newer lights. And, finally, following the install of the new lights (above) the EAC has been reduced to just 1985, an impressive reduction in energy consumption of 78%
Heritage lighting at Weavers Yard, Sedbergh, photo: Michael Baeron