Abri Housing

Abri Housing are a national housing association who offer quality housing for the private and rental sector. Abri has a number of sites in Weymouth, Dorset.

The Carlton Road site is a mixed development of houses and apartments, some are of new build construction, the apartments are situated in a converted private school building. Although Carlton Road is lit with streetlights provided on the main road, the actual housing areas have no lighting. These areas were a concern for Abri as the residents felt unsafe at night walking to and from their cars, they also from time to time had groups of youths congregating in these areas which also made the residents feel unsafe. Abri had looked to fit lighting to these areas but the cost and inconvenience to dig trenches and lay cables would have been commercially unviable. They also wanted a lighting system that would meet their requirements to reduce the carbon footprint and be energy efficient.

Abri’s specialist housing projects team contacted Vivid Solar in the first instance to help them come up with a plan to supply and fit lighting to the areas that were dark. 

Vivid’s team visited the site and met with the specialist housing team. A full survey was carried out of the area, to establish the positioning of the lights. The apartments’ car park had many large trees so this also had to be taken into account. Vivid’s team worked on a lighting design to meet the client’s requirements, this was issued to the client along with a quotation which was agreed, and the works were then scheduled to be fitted.

Vivid Solar’s operations team scheduled the works and carried out the installation of the lighting.

The 5 metre lighting columns were erected in mainly soft ground and dug to a depth of 1 metre, the columns were then embedded in a quick drying concrete mixture. Our installers then fitted the light unit and solar panel, and finally tested the operation of the units. All excavation waste was removed from site and disposed of in a green recycling skip.

Final handover took place and Abri were pleased with the whole process. A spokesman for Abri said “the lights are great, they work really well and look amazing, the whole process from start to finish was a pleasure and we will be using Vivid Solar on future sites where we require additional lighting.”