{"id":608555,"date":"2026-05-28T13:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T13:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/608555\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T13:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T13:48:09","slug":"new-dark-skies-policy-could-help-highland-night-time-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/608555\/","title":{"rendered":"New dark skies policy could &#8216;help Highland night-time economy&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Highland Council said its region, which has large, sparsely populated areas, offered stargazers some of the darkest skies in Europe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Weather-permitting, and when conditions are right, the Highlands offers the chance to see the Milky Way and displays of the aurora borealis &#8211; the Northern Lights.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cromarty Firth Liberal Democrat councillor John Edmondson, and Independent Inverness South councillor Duncan Macpherson, said there were communities in their wards that did not want street lights spoiling views.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But Ruraidh Stewart raised concerns more planning rules could put off developers, and affect the local authority&#8217;s efforts <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cv2g498zp33o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">to build 24,000 new homes over the next 10 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ken Gowans said the policy would be &#8220;balanced&#8221; and not applied to every new development.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said planning officials had produced a &#8220;really important&#8221; report, adding: &#8220;It opens the door to night-time tourism.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The Highlands have some of the darkest skies in Europe and we need to capitalise on that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The committee agreed that further work should be done on the proposals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Highland Council said its region, which has large, sparsely populated areas, offered stargazers some of the darkest skies&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-608555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}