A major £6.6 million upgrade of Hampshire school sports facilities features RIDI Lighting's ABR- SPORT luminaires. The grant from the New Opportunities Fund has allowed Hampshire County Council to improve sports and outdoor activities for young people, and the County is now working towards providing every secondary school in the county with a sports hall for educational and community use.

As part of the scheme, a number of schools in the region have new sports halls and changing facilities. The lighting design is a key element in each sports hall and needed to perform well enough for a wide range of events as many of the halls can be hired for community use.

Southampton based electrical contractors, Reavey & Son, specified RIDI's ABR- SPORT luminaire; a solution which provides contrast and balance and delivers a spacious feeling within each hall. Tony McNeil of Reavey & Son, explains: "We selected the ABR-SPORT from RIDI as it is of high quality manufacture, performs well in impact testing, as well as having a proven track record at an affordable price to the client."

The highly-robust ABR- SPORT luminaire is fitted with a specially manufactured low-glare white steel crossblade louvre that has additional steel reinforcing bars to comply with DIN 18032 Part3 - a German sports hall lighting standard for which there is no UK equivalent. This standard includes full ball impact testing to destruction and is therefore the perfect solution for this type of application, where constant rigorous use and abuse is a major factor in luminaire selection. In order to further improve visual comfort, the luminaires also feature indirect lighting slots to provide additional uplight.

Manufactured at RIDI's headquarters in Germany , the ABR range is manufactured with in steel and has a high-grade scratchproof white paint finish. Kits are available for a dedicated pre-wired trunking system that can be cambered to suit particular sport applications. All variations are supplied complete with integral high-frequency control gear with the option of a 3-hour integral emergency facility.