Why are lights left on in small hours?

Letter-writer John Morgan was presumably joking when suggesting shops close on Sundays to save a seventh of heating/lighting costs.

But, on a related matter, why are shop window displays’ lights, and those of some office premises and other buildings, often left on all night while unviewed/unoccupied, given very few staff or potential customers pass during the small hours?

I am still seething about an overzealous police officer who trailed and repeatedly harassed me while I was minding my own business on a nocturnal town-centre stroll in the apt-countied Berkshire town Windsor circa 1997.

If citizens are not permitted to freely walk the streets and pass shop windows, what is the point of illuminated displays?

Francis Harvey

By email