For many the much lighter evenings signal the end of winter and allow us to get back outside enjoy our natural surroundings.
However the clock changing, also known as Daylight Saving Time (DST), could soon be a thing of the past as the European Union has moved a step closer to asking Member States to choose a permanent time for the entire year.
DST has been a law across the EU since 2001 but last week it’s MEP’s voted, by 410 to 192, to stop mandatory clock changes and allow individual countries to choose by 2021 if they want to keep their summer time or their winter time, year round.
The proposal will know go the Members states for consent.
This could see the UK choosing either permanent BST or keeping Greenwich Meantime (GMT) all year round, regardless of whether or not it leaves the EU.
Why are the EU scrapping it?
The EU carried out a public consultation in August last year which drew over 4.6 million votes, a record for an exercise like this. 84 per cent of respondents were in favour of putting an end to the bi-annual clock change. However critics have pointed out that the vast majority of respondents were from one country: Germany.
It is more than a 100 years since the changing the clocks was first established in the UK under the Summer Time Act of 1916.
Listen to what Bournemouth resident’s think about changing from Daylight Saving Time below:
