As an amateur astronomer in Romford, London Borough of Havering, I do find it frustrating that most of the night sky has an orange glow due to light escaping upwards from the top of street lights.

  That means that it is almost impossible to see any celestial objects below the second magnitude less than 45 degrees above the southern and western horizons—even with a small telescope.

  As a frequent traveller abroad I always notice how much clearer the night skies are. The lack of light pollution allows very faint objects to be clearly visible by the naked eye.

  Please can I take this as an opportunity to request that the authorities responsible for street lighting are required to consider using lamp-posts that are designed to increase the amount of light focused downwards (thus increasing illumination on the ground where it is needed) and to avoid light escaping upwards and being wasted.

  Better-focused lighting could also reduce running costs as the light produced would be used more efficiently.

  Obviously, the cost of replacing all lamp-posts in the near future would be out of the question, but if a scheme was introduced to replace old lamp-posts as they reach the end of their normal useful lives with lamps that used focused light more effectively, then in 20-30 years' time, there would be a noticeable improvement.

  Alternatively, it may be possible to improve efficiency of existing lights by upgrading the reflective part of lamps as part of the normal replacement of defective light bulbs—this may mean that less powerful bulbs could be used.

8 September 2003