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Gillingham cuts light pollution with new leisure park security installation

Nighttime safety and security at a waterside leisure park in Gillingham, Kent, has been improved with a new lighting system that also reduces light pollution.

The installation at the Gillingham Strand, carried out by TJW Electrical Ltd, uses a combination of Ganz IR infra-red illuminators and Ganz WL white light illuminators.

The infrared models allow high quality black and white CCTV images to be captured without ‘spilling' visible light into neighbouring residential areas.

Light pollution is seen as an increasingly important issue among architects, facilities managers and local authority planners.

At the Gillingham Strand white light illuminators are being used in certain higher risk areas, closer to the river.

"The customer wanted high quality colour CCTV coverage of key points, so we had to use a certain amount of white light," explains TJW's general manager Steve Craddock.  "But we were also asked not to spoil the surrounding area with insensitive floodlighting, or add needlessly to light pollution."

To solve the problem TJW designed a system using a combination of Ganz WL300 and WL500 illuminators, which deliver accurately targeted visible light, and Ganz IR750 and IR500 illuminators, which produce light invisible to the human eye.

The IR illuminators are located at points where there is a clear line of sight to neighbouring houses and although they can't be seen by residents they allow the CCTV cameras to pick up crisp, clear images.

"These models are also very energy efficient compared with traditional halogen lamps," adds Steve Craddock.  "The client was keen to keep power consumption as low as possible."

The Ganz illuminators feature high output energy efficient LEDs and a unique Cool Running thermal management system which controls output and LED life.