REDDITCH Town Hall and the Palace Theatre will be in the dark this weekend as the council shows its support for Earth Hour.

Between 8.30pm and 9.30pm on Saturday, March 29, a number of external lights at the town hall, car park and Palace Theatre (the older part) will be turned off in support of WWF’s international Earth Hour.

The campaign designed to make people more aware of their impact on the environment and raise money for WWF projects which help maintain the delicate balance in the Mau Mara Serengeti, which more than 1 million people and a vast range of wildlife and depend on.

Kath Manning, assistant climate change officer, said: “Earth Hour is a great campaign to make people more aware of the environment around them and their impact on it.

"We are really trying to improve our carbon footprint and at the Town Hall and Palace Theatre about four per cent of the electricity we use currently comes from the solar panels on the roof. We would encourage everyone, whether businesses or individuals, to think about how they can make a difference.”

Tim Mackrill, theatre manager, said: “Since the refurbishment of the building in 2005, we have been working hard towards a smarter and greener theatre and have invested into making the building as energy efficient as possible.

“One of our biggest achievements is leading the way in energy efficient LED lighting. We now have LED’s in place of power hungry lamps around the foyers, bar and lift and have also replaced our stage lighting equipment in the main theatre and the room upstairs which give us far more flexibility and save literally thousands of watts of electricity per year.”

For a full list of green projects at the Palace theatre, see redditchpalacetheatre.co.uk/being-green.

For more information on Earth Hour, see earthhour.wwf.org.uk.