Residents struggle with glare as light pollution spreads to Tseung Kwan O

Light pollution has spread to the outskirts of the city, with hundreds of residents complaining about glare from excessive advertising lighting at a recently renovated shopping mall in Tseung Kwan O.

Residents of Yan Ming Court have been doing everything they can to block the light from the signs on the Metro City shopping mall, which faces the residential block.

Some have been keeping their curtains closed, and one resident has taken the extra step of placing a board next to his bed to block the light that still manages to seep through.

Local politicians and representatives of the green group Friends of the Earth have received numerous complaints since September last year, when the mall placed 12 brightly lit sign boards, each measuring about five storeys, around the mall.

The new fixtures replaced a collection of advertising banners that had been illuminated by spotlights.

When the mall was trying to find clients to rent the boards, the lights were left on until midnight. The mall eventually decided to switch them off at 11pm, but residents still found the glare too bright and wasteful.

'Some of the boards are located in places where few shoppers pass by,' Sai Kung district councillor Ng Ping-yiu said. 'No one would ever look up at the boards when they are walking under them. The only audience is the residents who have to live facing them.'