Founded in 1938, Beaumont School in St Albans educates over 1,200 students through secondary and sixth form phases.
A project to rejuvenate school facilities, primarily Fields, Access and Buildings (project FAB), has been underway providing state of the art Sports, Maths and IT facilities.
Amongst these additions were all weather sports fields, a professional standard rugby pitch and a multi-use games area. With huge success in a wide range of sports, Beaumont School required high quality sports lighting on the all-weather pitch. Working alongside surface contractor Blakedown Sport & Play, Abacus put together a maintainable and energy efficient LED lighting solution.
In order to meet the schools requirements, Abacus used high performance AAA-LUX WS-Series LED floodlights. These 1,700W floodlights are easily controlled by school staff via an on-site switchbox enabling them to select a pre-programmed lighting configuration. The pitch is split into two halves which are set as zones within the programme. This tells the system to either light the entire pitch or just one half, in addition to this, the lighting can be dimmed between uses or for light training purposes.
With its modular design, light can be effectively aimed and distributed with minimal glare. This results in maintained lighting levels and uniformity on pitch without affecting players' vision, whilst light overspill to the nearby housing is greatly reduced. Use of LED allows for instant start up times and increased flexibility as lighting can be quickly switched on and off, this results in low running costs and reduced energy consumption, giving further savings for the school.
The floodlights were mounted on Abacus' Raise and Lower HL250 masts. These masts can be safely lowered using a hydraulic counterbalance. Mast lowering allows for maintenance to be undertaken at ground level, providing quick and hassle-free maintenance without the risks of working at height. Both the maintenance and installation times are kept to a minimum, resulting in decreased costs and site downtime, which is ideal for school timetabling and budgeting. Teamed with the high performance WS-Series LED floodlights, only eight HL250 masts were required for an effective lighting distribution across the multi pitch area.
In addition to the sports lighting, a number of Classique bollards were installed on the pathways surrounding the all-weather pitch. These bollards use pressed aluminium louvres to output an effective symmetrical light distribution. For maintenance purposes, access to the louvres is via concealed security screws. Having undergone extensive testing for vandal resistance, these bollards hold up to physical contact from both people and sports equipment, making them ideal for a school and sports environment such as this.
