"The children do a good part of their indoor soccer training without light every winter afternoon," denounces Juan, one of the parents who takes his two children on Tuesdays and Thursdays to train at the Palas del Rey sports facility in Las Tablas, in Madrid, one of the few public soccer fields to play sports in said neighborhood in the north of the capital.
"The streetlights in the neighborhood turn on earlier, but the soccer field doesn't light up until 6:30 p.m., so the children do half of their training in the dark," explains the same affected father.
Given this situation, continues a mother who prefers to remain anonymous, "we have made more than six complaints to the City Council through 010, but they ignore us." And she insists, "they move us from one department to another, but in the end they don't fix the situation."
Juan thinks that "the differential is programmed like this", but in his opinion, the option would be "to change the ignition programming time or if it is a machine that does not allow changes to be made and that is why they do not program it before, then the option "It would be changing the device to have another one that allows, depending on the hours of sunshine, to change the time at which the public lighting in the field begins to work."
Every day more than 45 children between 5 and 9 years old come to play organized sports, plus those who come on their own, since that soccer field is located next to the Blas de Lezo public school and the children of that educational center have preference from 4 to 5:30 p.m., but then many come with their families to spend the afternoon when the weather is good or it is not raining.
Given this situation, Juan emphasizes that "more attention should be paid to the lighting of this type of sports facilities because in spring they turn on at the same time and such lighting is no longer necessary." In his modest opinion, "energy efficiency measures should be implemented, which is the best way to manage resources with economic criteria."
Be that as it may, the families ask the City Council led by José Luis Martínez-Almeida "to fix this situation because they are small children and the lighting from the streetlights on the nearby streets is quite far away."
