Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to encourage local authorities to tackle light pollution and help protect dark skies in their areas.

The Government is taking a number of steps to encourage local authorities to address light pollution.

The National Planning Policy Framework includes consideration of the impact of light pollution on local amenity, intrinsically dark landscapes and nature conservation. The Department for Communities and Local Government has also published additional guidance setting out when light pollution is relevant to planning, which the Government asks all local authorities to have regard to when considering planning decisions: http://planningguidance.communities.gov.uk/blog/guidance/light-pollution/.

Other Government action includes encouragement for local authorities to introduce LED street lighting where it is economically feasible to do so, in order to reduce glare. Defra has also supported applications from National Parks, such as Exmoor and South Downs, to become International Dark Sky Parks or Reserves.