Residents protest over Sussex village’s ‘floodlit cemetery’

The residents say that the lighting is excessively bright and beams into their homes in Parsonage Road and Chantry Close, Henfield.

Sarah Terry, who says she has had to put up ‘blackout’ curtains in her bedroom, said: “This must be England’s first floodlit cemetery.”

She and her husband David are among a number of residents - known as Parsonage Track Residents’ Group - who have banded together to protest against the intensity of the lighting.

Sarah said they thought the cemetery was the only burial place in the country “to be illuminated in this manner.

“No religious organisation or council have any guidelines regarding this - presumably because no-one would consider installing lights in cemeteries.”

She added: “If you are lighting a footpath in a rural area, you would have low level light - not this.”

Kevin Wright, clerk to Henfield Parish Council which installed the lighting, said it was a planning condition on creating the village’s Parsonage Farm estate that there should be better links between the north of the village, the village leisure centre and St Peter’s School. It had been planned to build a new footpath, but it was not possible and the cemetery path proved a ‘suitable alternative safe walking route.’

He added that the lighting was designed and manufactured by specialists who inspected it after the council reported residents’ complaints. However, the specialists, he said, maintained that the lighting met British standards.

He added that the lighting made “people feel safer, encouraging some to walk rather than drive to the leisure centre and school.”

“As a parish council we have to take a broad view around what benefits the community as a whole, accepting that we cannot please all of the people all of the time, but to try and make adjustments where smaller groups are affected by a change. That is exactly what we are doing in this case.

“In overall terms we are pleased with these improvements and the benefits that they bring.”