So British Summertime has arrived, the clocks went forward one hour on Sunday 25th March. Lighter evenings and a general feeling that the winter is behind us is the result, especially as the weather was unseasonably warm.
Unfortunately in October, we will put the clocks back again, the result is that by late December, up north, it’s dark by 3.30 in the afternoon. That is unacceptable. What we need to do, and urgently, is to not put the clocks back this October and to stay on British Summertime until next March and then put them forward by one more hour for the summer. The so-called ‘double summertime’.
Here are the pros and cons.
Pros:
- An extra hour of light in the evenings. This would save many road accidents as it is easier to see in the daylight, that much is obvious.
- School children have to travel home from school in the dark at the moment, it would be safer for them not to have to do so.
- Cheaper to run our households and businesses as it would be an hour later that you have to switch the lights on. This would save industry lots of money and make us more carbon friendly as well.
- We would be on the same time as the rest of Europe. Much better for trading purposes.
Now the cons, there is only one.
- It’s dark in the mornings in Scotland. For way too long the rest of the UK has had to stay on this ridiculous time zone, all on our own in Europe, because a few farmers in Scotland don’t want to change. Here is a fact. It does not matter what time you are on, in the depth of winter there are only so many house of daylight and in northern Scotland there are only six and a half. Most school days are six and a half to seven hours long, so the children will have to go to school and come home again in the dark. You can play around with the clocks as much as you like, but you still only get six and a half hours of daylight.
Time to stop this farce. It is ridiculous that we allow people to die on the roads because it is dark so early. It is hugely expensive for the UK to pay to light workplaces and homes for an extra hour every day unnecessarily. Let’s stay on British Summertime from October, and stay on Central European Time year round. Obviously you are never going to please every one of the 60 million people who live in the United Kingdom, but we need to do what is best for the majority. I’m sorry for the Scottish farmers, well perhaps a little, but they should not hold us to ransom any longer.
Change it now.