Bid to extend daylight saving

Nelson City Council looks set to consider a call for three more weeks of daylight saving in future.

Councillor Mark Holmes told The Nelson Mail he had noticed a "general sadness" pervading the community when daylight saving, and therefore summer, ended on the weekend.

Yesterday a council committee recommended the full council consider a suggestion from Mr Holmes, who wants to see it seek to have daylight saving extended by two weeks in autumn and a week in spring.

He calculated New Zealand received 24 weeks of summer time under the current daylight saving regime.

The split was bad news for power consumers, who were forced to turn lights on earlier at night, and for tourism operators, who headed into their off-peak season at the end of daylight saving, he said.

An Internal Affairs Department spokesman said that every year a handful of requests was made to change daylight saving or abolish it altogether.

- NZPA