It’s about time – but why do we turn the clocks back?

The UK goes into its traditional five-month hibernation from this weekend when the clocks are turned back.

We put behind us the outdoor delights of spring, summer and early autumn, batten down the hatches, and sit in darkened rooms until next March.

The country moves from the upbeat-sounding British Summer Time (BST) to the more forbidding Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

But does it have to be like this? What’s wrong with a little less light at the start of the day and a little more in the early evening?

Avoiding accidents

In recent years environmental, road safety and tourism campaigners have joined the call for a GMT+1 in winter and GMT+2 in the summer.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (Rospa) says some 80 deaths could be avoided each year as a result of the switch.

Chief Executive Tom Mullarkey told Channel 4 News: “Needless fatalities and countless accidents and injuries would be avoided.”

Indeed, it wasn’t always this way. The GMT-BST separation only came into force during the first world war. Half a century later, there was an experiment between 1968 and 1971 when Great Britain basked in year-round “summer time”.

But perhaps you feel safer travelling to work in the grey rather than the black. Maybe you like leaving the office in the dark.

Here are some of the main arguments for and against the temporal shift.

For: happier farmers

Depending on a farm’s work pattern, an extra hour’s daylight can be more beneficial in the morning. But the NFU says it has no strong views one way or the other. “At this stage we are keeping an open mind,” NFU Deputy Director General Martin Haworth told Channel 4 News.

For: happier postmen

The same goes for postal workers. It’s useful to be able to see the frothing dog’s shadow behind the front door as you head down the garden path.

For: a more united Scotland

In Scotland the days get lighter later in any case. So not putting the clocks back could mean some parts don’t see daylight until mid-morning, resulting in more road accidents.

But when Channel 4 News asked the Scottish government for an opinion, it was non-committal: “Proposals from the Scottish government for substantial more powers for the Scottish parliament were published on 10 October by Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Power to set time zones were not included in these proposals.”

Against: dark and dangerous roads

Rospa says more people are killed and injured on British roads because of darker evenings in autumn and winter. It wants the government to institute Single/Double Summer Time (SDST), which would mean GMT+1 hour in winter (i.e. the same as BST) and GMT+2 in summer, which would make evenings in the middle of the year even longer.

In southern England, it could be light until nearly midnight.

Against: a less cheerful outlook

Around half a million people in this country are thought to be affected by seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a negative mental state produced by an absence of daylight. That number could be reduced if winter evenings were lighter.

Against: more pollution

A Cambridge University study says moving to SDST would reduce CO2 pollution by 450,000 tonnes each.