Complained to council who sent taylor wimpy a message and taylor wimpy replied with this –

'From an electrical perspective, the lights are required to come on when it gets dark. This is so the residents can see when exiting the building from the rear to the bin/cycle stores + car park. We have installed as per the design.'

No other issues with the flats but the amount of light coming through the house is fucking annoying, why it has to be a light sensor and not a motion sensor is beyond me, but around 4pm they turn on and won't turn off til about 8am

Is there anything else I can do? Or just suck it up forever?

by nazrinz3

31 comments

  2. Saves you turning the lights on when you nip for a midnight piss.

    Plus curtains with blackout linings.

  3. Even if there’s a requirement for lights to come on, surely it doesn’t need to be a billion lumens of piercingly-white, un-diffused light pointed directly through your windows.

    You can probably negotiate with them to come to some sort of compromise, but I’d just stick up some black-out blinds in the meantime.

  4. I mean, sure some lighting might be needed per design, but it’s a matter of quantity. Excessive is excessive. More complaining can eventually yield some results. Not getting rid of the lights but getting them switched to something less eye-melting.

  6. >New build

    Surprise surprise.

    Anyway, better to be on a light sensor than on a motion sensor. Having floodlights come on when I walk past a house is no damn’ fun.

    Actually super-bright lights seems to be the in thing this winter. Pretty sure cars’ headlights are getting brither, too.

  8. I think they can put blinders on them. I have seen them in other places because the LEDs can be so bright.

  10. there’s pretty basic rights to not having spotlights shine into your house, its why neighbours who set up floodlights have to avoid blinding other houses with them so I don’t see how wimpy gets away with it

    Taylor wimpy are shit anyways so you’d probably get no where. Worst case scenario go spraypaint it if you feel cheeky

  11. That’s pretty excessive, have a look at your local council’s guidance regarding nuisance and artificial light complaints.

  13. I’m in a new build and my neighbours had a similar issue. They complained and got them to change the LEDs to a lower lumen i.e. something that isn’t brighter than the surface of the sun.

    They’re fucking twats and you have to argue and fight tooth and nail, but if you don’t give up you can usually get someone to see sense/cave in.

    Good luck!

  14. You can probably complain to the council about that, certainly if there are street lights that do the same they often act by shielding the light or by finding some other solution.

  15. Environmental health department of your council will help. Have been contracted to fix this sort of issue lots of times

  16. I suspect that’s Taylor Wimpey’s standard ‘fob them off’ response to discourage you from pursuing the matter further. I’d suggest being persistent and awkward, but also suggesting reasonable remedies such as using dimmer bulbs, some sort of shade, or repostioning the lights so that they don’t shine directly into your windows.

    It may help to mention that if you can’t come to an agreement you’ll ask the council to look into whether the light is a [statutory nuisance under the Environmental Protection Act 1990](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/artificial-light-nuisances-how-councils-deal-with-complaints). It’ll make it seem that you know what you’re talking about, if nothing else.

  18. It’s most probably a nuisance under environmental protection act 1990. Direct lights are considered a nuisance. Your council’s environmental health department can serve an abatement notice.

  19. Can’t remember exactly what it is called but there are laws around people shining lights directly into your windows. I’m not sure if it not necesserily being other households is a loophole around this.

  20. Plus side: you get to feel like you’re about to be abducted by aliens whilst pooping.

  21. I had a similar issue a few years ago and got in touch with the local council – their website had a contact form to report this kind of thing (artificial light from premises falls under nuisance behaviour) and they were actually really good: they called me back promptly by phone, and sent someone round to check it out (at night!).

    The block behind ours has similar lights that *were* angled in a ridiculous and unnecessary way which basically shone into every window on our block. I have no doubt that the ‘Taylor Wimpey’ response is probably valid but they’ll have been installed by a muppet without any thought for how they should be angled to achieve the required security but not disturb neighbours. The council got the building owners to adjust them and they’ve been much more tolerable since.

    Good luck.

  22. I assume it affects your neighbours as well? You might have more luck if you can get others to complain too

  23. Ask them to install shrouds to the lights to limit the light bleed

  24. Tell them you’ll give them a bad NHBC survey score if they don’t sort it, that’ll quickly get it resolved

  25. Hang a fucking mirror outside your bathroom window and blast that light right back at them.

    These developers really piss me off.

  26. Check what their planning permission says, the council should have required compliance with ILP GN01 (but probably didn’t)

  27. Just because it’s installed to the design doesn’t mean that the design is correct. The design should take in to account nuisance to residents and neighbours. The council should take this very seriously, it’s a big thing with planning.

  28. Complain to your council about light pollution. It’s a recognised issue, they can’t be blasting bedrooms with lights. There are readily available remedies that the builders could implement, simply angling the lights being one of the simplest, but that they choose not to is exactly that – their choice.

  29. I get black out blinds, and put tin foil o nthe back of them so it lights up outside instead of inside. They’ll soon get sick of it reflecting and blinding them.

  30. One of my roles is designing lighting for planning applications.

    Ask for the proof of the lux levels on the property, particularly on the windows.

    For planning you would usually have to submit a lux plot and often a report to show compliance with the Institute of lighting professionals guidance notes for the reduction of obtrusive light GN01:2011.

    The requirements for glare into windows depends where you live so it’s stricter in countryside and less in cities etc, I’ve attached the table from a project, not sure what would apply to you as not sure where you are.

    Firstly I would ask them to check they’ve been installed as per the design angle that could be a simple error and a very easy fix.

    When I’ve had tricky projects we’ve added a back plate onto the light so they only have light throw in the forward direction (or greatly limited) thus focussing on the road, this is a reasonably simple fix.

    If it is throwing light so far forward it’s going across the road and into your flat it’s a poor luminaire selection and different optics should be selected to provide a different throw. So different luminaire would help.

    Or luminaire with lower output (or it could have controls which it can just be ramped down so won’t even cost anything to ramp it down) Note: You don’t actually need it to be that bright to meet guidance so they may be able to reduce output. It’ll be max 20 lux not sure the site so likely even less.

    See what they come back with, I hope this helps!

    https://preview.redd.it/s1i5t6h2rtbe1.jpeg?width=533&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=106ec285e0d0d6d741f861d7283d38f526c625d9

  31. Simple solution, hang a mirror in front of your window and tilt it towards them. Check mate.

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