Last weekend, before the clocks officially went forward an hour onto British Summertime, Lord Simon Tanlaw and Colin Dawson, chief executive of the British Association of Leisure Parks Piers and Attractions (BALPPA) symbolically moved the hands of Legoland’s Big Ben on two hours in support of their bid to introduce ‘double summertime’ in the UK.
Lord Tanlaw has tabled the Lighter Evenings (Experimental) Bill, which calls for a three-year trial of a scheme which would see clocks no longer reverted back to Greenwich Mean Time in October, but remaining an hour ahead until March, when the clocks would go forward another hour.
The move would see the UK get an extra hour of daylight every evening.
The initiative is strongly backed by BALPPA which claims longer summer evenings would be a huge benefit to the country’s attractions industry.
“Moving the clocks forward by two hours rather than one would boost British tourism,” said Dawson. “An extra hour on the clocks in summer would create the opportunity for British tourist attractions to operate for an extra hour a day.
“It would help the government meet its target of increasing the annual £75bn income from tourism to £100bn by 2010.”
This view is also supported by tourism marketing body VisitBritain.
"The proposed change to Daylight Savings could provide a potential boost to the visitor economy,” said a spokesperson. “Lighter evenings would extend the time for visitors to be active outdoors and support other businesses that rely on these visitors for their trade. The extra hour of daylight in the evenings would encourage more people to take advantage of tourist attractions across Britain all year round.”
"The most recent definitive report, by the Policy Studies Institute, estimated the move would generate an additional £1.2bn in spending – and in turn, provide over £100m in additional revenue for HM Treasury from VAT and Excise duty. This research however was it was conducted in the 1990s and the potential impact now could be much more extensive for tourism."
Dawson added that there could also be benefits in the lead up to the Olympic Games in 2012. “The government is naturally anxious that Britain performs well in the Olympic medal tables in 2012 and longer evenings will enable many athletes to train longer,” he said, “and just consider the benefit to the Olympics themselves in having an extra hour of daylight in which to hold the events.”
He also claimed that the move would help the government’s obesity targets, allowing children longer hours of outdoor play.
Photograph: Colin Dawson (left) and Lord Simon Tanlaw move the hands on two hours on the Lego Big Ben in the shadow of the real thing
