Dark Skies Advisory Panel Appointed

Dark Skies Advisory Panel Appointed

Dunedin (Friday, 4 December 2015) – Taking a smart approach to enhancing Dunedin’s night skies starts next month with the first meeting of the Dark Skies Advisory Panel.

The Panel, chaired by Dr Ian Griffin of the Otago Museum, has been established to review city projects that have a significant outside lighting component. At the first meeting on 8 December, the Panel will discuss the plans to change the lighting at the University of Otago Oval and the city’s transition to LED street lighting.

Dr Griffin says, “With new technologies, we have an amazing opportunity to not only deploy energy efficient lighting, but also improve our view of the night sky.

“To my mind, achieving this goal while simultaneously saving money for the city is a cause worthy of wide support. I very much look forward to working with the Dunedin City Council and Panel members as we work towards making Dunedin a night sky city.”

The Council resolved to establish this Panel at the Long Term Plan deliberations earlier this year. The move comes as the DCC is in the process of finalising the city’s Energy Plan which has an early action around exploring energy efficiencies.

The Panel seeks to bring key expertise from the Dunedin community together to ensure the city takes a smart approach to projects that have a lighting component.

DCC Planning and Regulatory Committee Chair Cr David Benson-Pope says, “There is a great deal of knowledge and experience in our city and the DCC would be remiss to take forward projects without drawing on this.

“I’m looking forward our panellists shedding new light on core work for Dunedin.”

The other Panel members are:

Gillian Adams, Otago health and disability advocate

Mirko Harnisch, Dunedin Dark Skies Group

Hoani Langsbury, Royal Albatross Centre

Hans Pietsch, Energy Manager, University of Otago

Dr Alexander Tups, Senior Lecturer, Physiology Department, University of Otago

Liz Waru - New Zealand Police

Barbara Anderson, Landcare Research

Stephen McKnight, Stephen McKnight Ltd.

DCC Infrastructure Services Committee Chair Cr Kate Wilson says Dunedin’s street lights are well maintained, with bulbs being replaced routinely. However, as technology advances the DCC, like other local authorities, will be moving to LED lighting. This will mean replacing each lighting unit, not just the light bulbs. This technology will be cheaper to run and maintenance costs will be lower as LED lights are generally more reliable and last longer.

ENDS

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