LUDLOW town councillor Vivienne Parry is to write to all the large supermarkets in the town to ask them to review their policy of leaving lights on at night.

She said she is making the move on the grounds of both light pollution and damage to the environment.

“Following the controversy over the wind turbine on Tesco’s store, Corve Street resident Pat Hanson wrote to Tesco pointing out the lack of logic in putting up a turbine only to burn off the energy in useless lighting during hours of darkness,” said Mrs Parry.

“I fully applaud Pat’s initiative. I can understand the need to stock shelves at night but having worked in one, I know this only takes a portion of the night and most of the town’s supermarkets have lights burning 24 hours a day. I’m following Pat’s lead and writing to Somerfield and Aldi, asking what commitment they have to reduce their energy consumption and light pollution.

“Simple measures like low energy bulbs and switching off when the work’s done would be a great help. It would also people like the residents of Gravel Hill who complained to me that they have lights blazing at the back of their houses all night.”

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