case study

HMP Garth Prison –
Full Prison Lighting Upgrade Scheme

CLIENT

Project Description

HMP Garth is a Category B men’s prison located in the village of Ulnes Walton, Lancashire. The prison was constructed in the late 1980s, and still retained much of its original infrastructure including the lighting system. Only essential repairs and replacements had been undertaken to keep the system operational.

The prisons facilities management had observed an increasing number of electrical failures, presenting a serious risk of harm to others. Due to the risks involved, Ministry of Justice decided to replace all lighting columns, internal and external at HMP Garth.

cost

£1m

duration

35 wks

location

HMP Garth,
Leyland

completion

December 2021

The Challenge

The scope of works included:

Delivery of a civil engineering package consisting of over 10,000 meters of new underground ducting and hundreds of drawpit chambers, ready for mechanical contractors.
Trenching and installation of new armoured cabling installed within dedicated cable ducts, inclusive of draw pits;
New, compliant lighting columns with LED luminaire heads, providing the required lux levels at the required heights and distances;
New lighting controls, housed within a dedicated external lighting panel, incorporating timeclock and photocells with manual override facility back to the control room;

Removal of all existing external lighting columns, and associated cabling.
Compliance with all Ministry of Justice Technical Standards in accordance with the scheme;
The provision of luminaires which meet the existing British Standards requirements, health and safety standards and which are installed in accordance with MoJ Technical Standards.
Renewals and upgrades to existing exterior and perimeter fence lighting.

“Stewarts completed a full upgrade of our lighting system at HMP Garth, our first major lighting upgrade since the prison was constructed in the 1980s. All aspects of the job were completed on time and in a highly efficient manner. We are delighted we chose Stewarts as the contractor for this project and we thank them wholeheartedly.

The Solution

In preparation for the new lighting installations Stewarts had to carry out the civil engineering package consisting of over 10,000m of new underground ducting and hundreds of drawpit chambers ready for the following mechanical contractors.

Within phase one of the project the draw pits were formed using a cast on site method with sacrificial formwork. As the project was located within an operational prison 90% of the concrete deliveries during the first phase were subject to waiting time fees, on average this increased the cost per concrete delivery by 17%. In addition to this insitu concrete transported within the trucks would often become unworkable due to the time scales involved with passing through multiple security gates and searches negatively affecting the quality of constructed drawpits.

For phase two of the project we made the decision to switch to a precast solution to minimise quality issues, time delays and cost increases we had experienced with insitu construction methods. We worked closely with FLI Precast and the Ministry of Justice to redevelop the design of drawpits inline with a precast product solution. The produced results were outstanding and subsequently program was reduced by four full weeks on a 20 week program of works. The precast products supplied created uniformity and a quality of finish that was unmatched by on site methods. Utilising precast also reduced material wastage and time on site leading to increase performances on time quality and cost.