Parish Council sees the light
The local church of St Marks in Hadlow Down has linked up with the Parish Council and a Sussex company to provide a series of innovative lights to help users of footpaths in the village. The new carbon-free, sustainable lights are made by Sussex solar lighting firm NiteSafe Ltd and are designed to provide a gentle light to guide walkers along the dark paths.
They are now contributing positively to energy and cost saving in the village. Compared to standard lighting in the churchyard, the total CO2 saving is almost 500kg per year and the cost saving is around 75 per year as there are no bulbs to replace.
NiteSafe has been researching and developing phosphor lighting and a prototype version was installed two years ago. Since then, further development of the product has enabled the brightness to be doubled and the costs halved. The lights use a similar type of material to that used in glow-in-the-dark watches but are specially made to increase the brightness and duration of the glow so they stay fully operative throughout a long winter’s night.
Phil Lancaster from NiteSafe says: “These lights not only help improve safety for users of the footpaths in the village but because they use no batteries, bulbs or cables they require no maintenance which means reliability is greatly improved. They are also tough and durable and should last for years.”
As well as improving safety for footpath users, the lights also have many industrial uses to help workforce safety - for instance they have been installed at Shoreham Harbour.
For more information on NiteSafe, contact the company on 01825 767567 or visit www.nitesafe.co.uk
6 Jul 2009