Madam,

I wish to seek an explanation through the columns of your paper, with regard to the amount of light pollution emitted from the Tesco site.

The roof-top car park has nine mast lights, and on each mast are four lighting units, which means 36 lighting units in total, as well as the roadway lights leading to the roof-top car park, most of which shine outwards.

They were left on for the first year continuously. Now they are turned off at around 10.30pm, but are turned back on at 5.30am. In the early hours of this morning, 18 February, I awoke at 3.30am to find my property bathed in light, and when I looked out the window I found that all the lights in the car park and the roadway lights leading to the roof top car park were all switched on.

This was despite the fact that the Tesco store was closed until 6am, and at 9am there was not a single vehicle in the roof-top car park So why have all the lights on at that time of the morning?

Everything that has been studied about light pollution states that the people who are subjected to it suffer greatly, with sleep deprivation just one of the things to suffer from. Denying people the right to darkness to sleep is bordering on illegal.

Apart from the utter waste of electricity, there is the pollution aspect it brings to the part of town immediately surrounding the store.

A sign on the loading bay gates asks drivers of delivery vehicles to please respect our neighbours, but Tesco are unable to respect their own neighbours themselves, so how is any visiting delivery driver ever going to respect us, the neighbours who live close to the store?

It has been mentioned in the press that Ceredigion County Council is going to be raising the council tax paid by Aberystwyth town residents by 15 per cent. I think Ceredigion need to sort out the Tesco site first before trying to get more money out of our pockets.

Yours etc, R Sheehan, Aberystwyth.

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