It's Saturday night and about 9pm and I'm walking passed the public toilets in the Gill, which are locked and have been since about 6 but the lights are on. I wonder why. I am reminded that SLDC were talking about closeing all the toilets in Ulverston. I read somewhere that it costs 800,000 a year to keep all of the toilets in the SLDC area open. Well if they leave the lights on in all the closed toilets you can see why there's a saving to be had here. I t may not be much but it could be quite a sizeable amount over a year. And then there's the carbon emissions that we are contributing to un neccassarily, so I want to know why we're doing this. The same goes for lots of shops and offices. The Ulverston business centre has big flourecent burning above it's doorway all night. HSBC has four floodlights on its sign. I could go on, but the end game here is that we need to have an awareness campaign to get these companies to turn off these lights. But especially I want SLDC to turn off the lights in the toilets that are closed.
If You know of any similar stories please let me know and I'll start listing them, perhaps on a new blog.
Colin! Wot about the bloody lights at the health centre? They are on all night, floodlighting an empty expanse of tarmac. The best that can be said for them is that they occasionally provide lighting for drunken, sometimes rowdy late night football matches, as happened one day last week at 1:30 in the morning. Pretty good too for late night illuminated gatherings of boy racers.
ReplyDeleteThey also floodlight my bedroom which I object to.
No doubt it is for security, much as the planting of antipodean rain forest plants was for financial savings. No need for gardeners.
The leccy bills at that place must be astronomical - enough for a few hip replacements?
That is a lot of cash to keep the toilets open but they are needed by visitors to the town. Could they be run cheaper by private companies? As for turning all lights off in the town (I assume you don't mean street lamps) I'm not sure about that. It is dark quite early in the winter and children plus people like me need plenty of lighting to get around safely. Dark doorways and corners provide cover for mischief and we get enough of that already. I remember the dark nights of the war years. When the lights came on again we felt a lot safer and emotionally brighter. Not that I am advocating waste but rather, safety.
ReplyDeleteGood for you, Colin, for raising this but aren't you the one to get something done about this?
ReplyDeleteAs a Councillor, surely, it's hardly your role to draw attention to problems but rather to get something done to correct them.
Great that you're asking for comments - surely this is the way round it should be - then you can get the problem fixed. It would be good to hear that all the councillors were pulling in the same direction and now with James Airey on all of the Town, the District and the County Council.
It feels strange that I can get United Utilities to do good repair work on Market Street (oppostite the West. Gaz. Office) as a result of the relationship, that i have developed; something none of the councillors have been able to achieve in the past.
What's on your mind Colin?
ReplyDeleteIt's been a month now . . .