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Lighting Assessment

Published: 2020-01-27 Updated: 2023-06-12 Subject:

Planning application - local requirement

When this Assessment is required

A Lighting Assessment details the impact of your proposed lighting scheme on the environment, neighbours and local wildlife. You will need to submit a Lighting Assessment for any applications which include floodlighting, or a significant amount of external lighting, where your development would be any of the following:

  • Next to a residential property
  • Next to a listed building
  • Within or next to a conservation area
  • Next to a roost, breeding or resting place of, or habitat of importance to, a legally protected species (such as bats, badgers, barn owls and great crested newts)
  • Within the open countryside
  • Alongside the River Avon, to assess predicted light spill from internal and external lighting (not only for schemes involving floodlighting)
  • Alongside other watercourses and habitats,  where there is a risk of impact on bats, especially light sensitive bat species such as the horseshoe bats associated with the Bath & Bradford on Avon Bats Special Area of Conservation.

What the Assessment should include

The assessment should provide details of the any external lighting, and the proposed hours when the lighting would be switched on. Your details should include a layout plan with the following information:

  • Beam orientation
  • Light spill
  • Lux levels
  • A schedule of the equipment in the design
  • The level of luminance for any advertisements

We strongly recommend consulting our Ecologist, using our Pre-Application Advice service, for more detailed advice on your proposed lighting scheme. 

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