#LightTheWay: Plea to 'keep the pressure on' after council agrees to look at park lighting

Lighting for city parks is to be investigated by the council after concerns were raised over the safety of people  — particularly women and children  — using them after dark.

Glasgow City Council has committed to look into providing sensitive lighting solutions in parks, which consider both equality and climate impacts.

It follows the launch of our Light The Way campaign asking for safety lighting to be installed along the main routes through Glasgow's parks.

The issue came to the fore during COP26, when local residents were forced to walk through Kelvingrove Park late at night due to a police diversion.

Welcoming the move, local Conservative councillor Thomas Kerr said:

"I welcome today's vote in the council which moves the Light The Way campaign forward a little bit."

"We had a debate today and there will be a paper coming forward to a committee to explain in more detail how the council can begin to implement some of the solutions to try and lighten up our parks."

"That's a welcome climb down from the administration."

"It was only about a month ago that they were saying no one should be going into parks when they are dark - which is bizarre but now they are climbing down and saying there is an issue there."

" The Light The Way campaign has done so much work, just over the past few weeks."

"It has managed to bring down Susan Aitken and the administration to supporting them now by the looks of it."

"I look forward to joining loads of people in Kelvingrove tomorrow at their rally, let's keep the pressure on."

Councillor Jill Brown, Labour, has now secured support for a motion which called for a report on the “necessary infrastructure to provide sensitive lighting solutions in our parks”.

Speaking at a full council meeting, she said Glasgow would be dark by 3.44pm today, when the council meeting would be “far from over” and workers “far from the end of their working day”.

“Glasgow does not have accessible spaces in our city for every woman, child and man after dark,” she added.

The councillor said the council must not “shy away” from making changes to our parks “which particularly help women and children to feel safe after dark”.

“As Rape Crisis Scotland has said, it is really important to be clear that we should be able to go where we want to go.”

Cllr Brown said the impact on wildlife must be recognised, but these “are not either/or questions”.

“We know that solutions are out there, this has been done in cities across the world.”

Her colleague Eva Murray, the Labour group’s deputy leader, said: “How can we be that proud Dear Green Place when our parks are not safe or accessible?

“This cannot become a people’s safety versus climate change or biodiversity debate, both issues are far too important.”

Cllr Brown accepted an amendment to her motion from the SNP, and Cllr Jen Layden, recently named the party’s women’s convener, said: “We cannot discuss this without the wider societal pandemic of gender-based violence.”

She added: “The reality is women and girls are at fear from being attacked in a variety of different settings and public spaces.

“What has to underpin this campaign is stopping all forms of violence against women and girls.”

She commended the work of women’s organisations and highlighted research from Young Women’s Led on feminist town planning.

Councillor Layden said: “There have been ongoing discussions with officers about how we respond as a city. I want to see more work on how feminist urban planning is mainstreamed into our council policies.”

Cllr Kim Long, of the Green group, had initially presented an amendment to the motion but withdrew it to avoid division on the issue.

She said her group felt the “immediate priority” should be having street lights that work, and there were “multiple challenges” to lighting up parks.

“There is not an easy answer,” she said, adding the climate and ecological emergency means the council cannot be “cavalier” in places which have primarily been for nature.

Councillor Mhairi Hunter, SNP, said a “one size fits all” approach wouldn’t work, recalling her own experiences from around 2013 when a campaign was launched to light up Queen’s Park.

She said she had “strongly supported” the idea, but it was “more complex than it seemed”.

“The police raised concerns that this could provide women with a false sense of security,” she said. “In their view making the park safe could not just entail lighting paths, it would also have entailed removing any nearby foliage in which predators could conceal themselves.”

Long running argument

It has been an issue in Glasgow in parks like Kelvingrove for a number of years, with women's groups and runners all calling for better lighting in the evenings.

The debate over lighting in the park was reignited during COP26 after a Police diversion forced women to walk through a dimly lit area of Kelvingrove to get home. Police Scotland issued an apology.

Generator powered lights were also put in place in some areas for the climate conference, something campaigners have been calling for years to improve safety and there were hopes this would be made permanent.

Experts say lighting IS possible

Urban planners from Barton Willmore and lighting experts from Arup who say that it is doable and they're joining our campaign to make it happen.

Laura Phillips is an associate director with Arup and has designed lighting for parks in major cities across the world.

She told our senior reporter Natalie Crawford-Goodwin: “Why should our parks not be used at night? It’s a resource to the people of the city. With technology being what it is now, we can use low energy sources and allowing people to use the whole of the city at night is actually of huge benefit and the more people who are able to use the park at night the safer it will actually become.

“To be quite frank, it’s just a maintenance headache for them and that’s what’s driving that opinion that parks shouldn’t be used at night and I think it’s important to question that and say why can’t we have a night park? Why shouldn’t we be able to use parts of the park at night? And those are all very fair and valid questions and perfectly reasonable things to ask of them.

“You would look at the diagram of the park and say okay, these are the areas we need to light up, these are the parks that would need to be lit and you would keep others dark as a deterrent.

Demonstration at Kelvingrove

Hundreds of people are set to gather in Kelvingrove Park on Friday, demanding Glasgow City Council do more to keep them safe at night.

The demonstration, which is part Clyde News' #LightTheWay campaign, will be held in the park on Friday December 10th at 6pm, at the Stewart Memorial Fountain.

It will bring people from across the city together to call for improved lighting in city parks and highlight the safety concerns of women and groups across Glasgow.

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