Group calls for lighter evenings
A pressure group is calling on the Government to move the clocks forward by one hour - so gardeners can spend more time tending their plots. A poll by campaigners revealed that gardening and growing fruit and veg would be top priority if we were given the luxury of an extra 60 minutes of sunlight each day. In fact, gardening eclipsed popular summer pastimes of relaxing in a pub beer garden and eating alfresco to top a chart of desirable evening activities (see panel).
The findings have come from the 10:10 Lighter Later campaign, an initiative launched in September 2009. It aims to pressurise ministers into permanently winding the clocks forward – a move that campaign chiefs say would achieve a 10 per cent cut in the UK’s carbon emissions.
Campaign manager Daniel Vockins said: “Ninety per cent of UK homes have a garden and this survey proves that our nation of gardeners would do more if they had more daylight to play with. If the Government followed Lighter Later’s proposals, just think of the amount of extra people who would be able to get their hands dirty.
The campaign, which claims to have 8,000 supporters, said its proposals have the backing of the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA), which recognises the benefits that an extra hour of daylight would offer to garden centres. Under Lighter Later’s proposal, Britain’s clocks would still go forward in spring and back in the autumn – but they would be advanced by one hour, to provide extra daylight.
