British Summer Time is here at last: everything you need to know about why the clocks go forward tonight

Staff at Bridgnorth's Old Mill Antiques Centre in Mill Street, Low Town, were busy changing time pieces to mark the end of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which officially ends at 1am on Sunday (March 30).

It means the clocks move forward one hour, marking the change to longer, lighter evenings right across the Midlands region.

But besides losing an hour of sleep, the positive and negative effects of daylight saving time are hotly debated.

Here is everything you need to know about why and when the clocks go forward.

The clocks go forward at 1am on the last Sunday in March. BST, also called daylight saving time (DST) lasts until the final Sunday in October when the clocks go back an hour. This year it will change on October 26.

But for now, early risers across Shropshire, Staffordshire and the Black Country will notice darker mornings immediately after the March change, while evenings will become lighter as the sun sets later.

As sunrise and sunset times continue to extend, parts of the UK will see almost 19 hours of daylight by the summer solstice on June 21, the longest day.

GMT was the default legal time used in Britain from 1880 before DST was proposed in 1907, meaning when the clocks go back everyone returns to the default time zone.

Contrary to popular belief, the time jump was not introduced to benefit farmers, who were never consulted. And dairy farmers have complained that the change disrupts their schedule, unsettling the cattle which struggle to cope.

DST was first proposed in the UK by inventor William Willett, who died before it became law, but his great-great-grandson, Coldplay singer Chris Martin, has seen it in action. Germany was the first to introduce it in 1916, during the First World War, while the UK followed suit a few weeks later.

Dr Jeffrey Kelu, circadian rhythms expert at King’s College London, says: “The most acute effect would be the loss of an hour of sleep and also the inability to adapt to the new working schedule. So the scientists and communities, as well as the sleep experts, actually suggest removing daylight savings as a whole.”

A recent YouGov showed that if the current system was scrapped, 59 per cent of Britons would opt for clocks to stay permanently on BST.