Coming to a street near you - the lights that keep you awake and could make people ill...

• Councils claim LED lights use less energy than conventional sodium bulbs
• Hounslow council agree to dim lights after complaints from residents
• But the local authority won't replace the 16,000 lights across the borough
• Bury council in Manchester plan to change 11,000 lights by 2017
• Similar schemes underway in parts of Blackburn, Birmingham and Glasgow
• However, scientists claim that LED lights can disrupt sleep patterns
• LED lamps can also leave some patches of street and pavement almost entirely unlit — and potentially vulnerable to criminals

By ALICE-AZANIA JARVIS

PUBLISHED: 00:45 GMT, 22 April 2014 | UPDATED: 10:38 GMT, 22 April 2014

When Andy Richards saw a dazzling light beaming through his bedroom window, his first thought was of alien invasion. ‘It was like The Day Of The Triffids,’ he says. ‘This brilliant white glare.’

Opening his curtains, he realised the source was more mundane. It came from the street light outside the two-bedroom home he shares with his wife Kate in Chiswick, West London.

Unbeknown to the couple, Hounslow council had installed LED lamp-heads on the street lights along their quiet residential road. The gentle, golden glow of the old lamps has been replaced by a harsh beam which, they say, makes it impossible for them to sleep.

So desperate have the couple become, they have taped a large pieces of black cardboard to their windows.

‘It’s like a World War II blackout,’ says Andy, a 61-year-old record producer, who has lived on the street for 25 years. ‘It was the only thing we could do. We’ve had three miserable weeks without sleep.’

The council claims LED lights were chosen because they use less energy, so they are cheaper to operate and more environmentally friendly than conventional sodium bulbs.

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