Mansfield Harriers & Berry Hill Athletics Track

About the project

Mansfield Harriers is a thriving running and athletics club based in Mansfield, England, formed back in 1920 they have had many generations of athletes who have run for both club and country pass through their ranks. The club celebrated their centenary year in 2020 however up until May 2021 they didn’t have a facility to call their home. From 1920 – 1958 the Club operated out of various venues until it moved to Berry Hill Park Mansfield where the athletes trained on a cinder track up-until 1988 when the current synthetic track was laid. Unfortunately for various reasons in 2012 the club had to leave their home track and in doing so they lost a huge part of who they are. Over the course of 8 years and without a club using the facility the site deteriorated to almost a point of no return until a very unique partnership formed, driven by Pat Carlan the Chairman of Mansfield Harriers, England Athletics and their official facility partners the site has been brought back to life, and the Harriers have finally returned home.

We were extremely proud to be part of this unique story, challenged with lighting the running track we supported the club from start to finish, working with England Athletics to secure the vital funding needed from sporting bodies and the council, to designing and installing the solution. Watch the full story below, and find out what it means to the club and community to have come home to Berry Hill Park.

The challenge

Before the project to bring the club’s home back to life, the Harriers could only use the local roads and pavements to train at night. Obviously, this meant the runners weren’t safe as they ran and this was ‘a constant worry each evening’ for the club’s Chairman, Pat Carlan. Something had to be done.

The old lighting system had been vandalised and wasn’t working. Even if had it been operational, it was over 25 years old and would have been expensive to run in terms of the high amount of electricity it would have consumed and wasted. Plus, the maintenance of lights that old is far from cheap. It also wasn’t know if the existing masts would be able to withstand holding new lighting.

This is where we, as world-leading lighting experts and Official Lighting Partners of England Athletics, were brought in.

Pat, the Chairman, had already started a successful local campaign, with support of the Mansfield Council, to raise funds for the regeneration project. England Athletics and Midstream were able to help this with by gaining funding from sporting bodies. The project was given the ‘green light’.

Our solution:

We quickly set our Design and Engineering teams to work. After examining the site, and the current infrastructure, they decided our Modus S Series would provide the perfect solution.

Specially designed for small to medium-sized sports facilities, and thanks to its adaptable construction, low windage properties, and high lumen delivery the Modus S is ideal for retrofit projects. It also provides a lumen package so high the number of lamps needed on the old system could be cut and the existing masts used. This meant the costs of the project would be kept as low as possible.

The specialty light shields, and patented optics of the Modus S allow light spill into other surrounding areas to be minimised. In this case, though, we were asked and designed the system to spill some light around the park area to help make it a safer space for the local community as well.

As with all our solutions, the Modus S is highly efficient so the club’s energy use would be cut by over half compared to the old system. The Series is incredibly robust and reliable, meaning maintenance costs would be slashed too.

You’ll find a full list of the Modus S Series features and benefits below.

Our onsite team completed the installation of the new system in April and the reopening celebration is set to take place once Covid restriction have lifted in July.