The lights have finally been switched off at Carmarthen’s former MFI store after over a year of campaigning.
The company went into administration in November 2008 and both the external and internal lights at the Carmarthen branch have been on 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Not only was it a waste of energy and money, but it was also pumping out tonnes of carbon dioxide which was damaging the environment and in turn contributing to global warming.
Carmarthenshire County Council has been trying to get the lights switched off all this time and last week finally won the battle.
The council’s corporate energy officer Neil Evans, executive board member for sustainability Councillor Pam Palmer and local member Councillor Steve Dunn have been leading the campaign.
It followed numerous complaints from local residents as well as from environmentally-minded pupils at Llangunnor Primary School who were considering starting a petition.
The site is owned by Tesco but held on a lease by MFI administrators – and there was confusion over who should take responsibility. But finally an agreement was reached between the two parties whereby the council would enter the site to switch off the lights.
Neil said:
“Tesco did not want to take back the site keys as this would have been perceived as a surrender of the lease, and the administrators refused to send someone down from Leeds.
“After months of to-ing and fro-ing, they finally agreed that we could do it. When we entered the store, all of the internal lights were on together with fans and CCTV monitors – I dread to think how much CO2 this equates to after all these months.”
Councillor Dunn added:
“I am delighted that we have finally been able to switch off these lights, we must do all we can to reduce our carbon footprint, whether it is switching off lights we don’t need or not leaving our televisions on standby, even the smallest things can make a huge difference.”
Carmarthenshire County Council is working hard to reduce its carbon footprint and has just secured £800,000 of interest-free funding to invest in energy efficiency projects in the county’s schools, offices, leisure centres and museums over the next year.
Councillor Palmer said: “Every time we switch on a light we are adding to the greenhouse effect. I would urge all local businesses to think about the effect their energy usage is having on the environment and to follow our lead and switch off all unnecessary lighting as well as consider other energy efficient technologies.”
