A PIONEERING national park is offering grants to local residents and businesses to improve their lighting and cut light pollution.

Northumberland National Park Authority is encouraging householders and others inside the park to take advantage of a new £4,000 grant to deliver dark-sky-friendly outside lighting.



The project, funded by energy snack company, Clif, is part of their first round of conservation grants to National Parks in the UK.

The company has already established funding projects in the USA and Canada.

Northumberland National Park is part of the Northumberland International Dark Sky Park – England’s first and Europe’s second largest International Dark Sky Park – which incorporates the National Park and Kielder Water and Forest Park, and covers 1,483 square kilometres.

Some areas of the park are fully designated dark-skies and therefore no new artificial outdoor lighting is permitted in these areas.

Businesses and residents living in the park can apply for funding to help them adapt or replace any outside lighting that might be unshielded or too bright, which could be contributing to light pollution beyond their boundary and impacting upon our dark skies.

‘We ‘re proud to have such pristine skies here in Northumberland,’ Duncan Wise, visitor development and marketing manager at Northumberland National Park told Lux.

‘This is a great opportunity for residents and businesses in the Park to help conserve our dark skies for the future and install the lighting they need for safety and security.

‘It’s estimated that over £1 billion is wasted in the UK through poorly installed, badly designed and inefficient outdoor lighting every year, yet environmentally friendly solutions which are fully-shielded are becoming more and more affordable.

/‘The Northumberland International Dark Skies Park has some of the darkest skies in the country, and shows how much difference good, considerate lighting can make.’

The Northumberland International Dark Skies Park has recently been credited with bringing over £25 million of dark skies tourism to the region, and more investment is being made to the dark-skies economy to support year-round tourism for Northumberland.

Applicants are invited to first contact Duncan Wise for an informal discussion at [email protected]

Main pic courtesy Northumberland National Park Authority.