Retail, leisure & hospitality
Trading hours are the programme
A shopping centre or venue cannot close for the duration of an electrical upgrade. The work follows the trading day, not the contractor's diary.
Two published projects and £1.52 million of delivered value, both completed in live centres with the public still moving through them.
- Published value
- £1.52m across two centres
- Trading
- Maintained throughout
- Control
- Addressable DALI head-end
What tends to go wrong
The building is never empty when the work happens
Retail and leisure programmes are decided by trading pressure, not by what suits the installation.
- 01
Silent hours, every night
Strip-out, cabling and ceiling reinstatement complete before opening — with waste routes, cleaning and a venue returned to trading condition each morning.
- 02
Light is part of the product
Colour temperature, glare and scene setting change how the space is read by customers. Wattage is the least interesting number in the brief.
- 03
Fault visibility beats walk-rounds
An addressable head-end with automated emergency testing removes manual inspection rounds and shortens the time between a fault and a fix.
Where the scopes meet
Lighting quality and energy reduction are the same intervention
The energy case is only half of it. The other half is how the centre feels to the people using it at eight in the evening.
One contractor on both sides of that interface is the whole argument.
- 01
Malls and atria
Electrical scope
Strip-out and re-cable in congested ceiling voids, low smoke zero halogen cabling and DALI commissioning scene by scene.
Renewable scope
Daylight harvesting and dimming schedules that hold light quality in the glazed atrium while removing standing load.
- 02
Car parks
Electrical scope
Containment, protection and metering for charge points, coordinated with the centre's existing distribution.
Renewable scope
Charging provision phased against real footfall and dwell time rather than installed as a marketing gesture.
- 03
Plant and roof
Electrical scope
Isolation, metering and the connection of generation into the site's distribution and controls.
Renewable scope
Rooftop PV — where the roof covering, the structure and the connection genuinely support it.
Relevant capability
The disciplines that come up here
Not every service is relevant to every environment. These are the ones that decide the outcome in this one.
Commercial electrical
The installation is fine. The evidence is missing. Distribution boards are not labelled to match the drawings, circuit schedules do not reflect what was actually installed, and the next contractor inherits a building nobody can trace.
Explore capabilityFire, security & data
When fire, security and data are separate contracts, coordination becomes someone else's problem. Ceiling space is contested, risers are filled in the wrong order, and commissioning dates slip against each other.
Explore capabilityMaintenance & compliance
Testing may be happening. The evidence often is not in a state anyone can use. Certificates sit in a folder, remedial actions are quoted but not prioritised, and the next duty holder inherits a list with no dates against it.
Explore capability
Existing assets
A retrofit creates a new asset base
Once the lights are controlled from a head-end, that control system is itself infrastructure with a service life, a warranty and a set of settings somebody needs to understand.
Commercial RCR — from £295 + VATCondition and configuration review of installed control and monitoring systems.
Condition reporting on rooftop generation and car park charging added after handover.
Findings written for the facilities team who inherit the system, not for the installer who commissioned it.
Evidence
Delivered in this environment
Lighting & controls
£1.1 million
Union Square Aberdeen
Retail illumination and intelligent control
A full lighting infrastructure overhaul across malls, atriums and car parks, controlled from a central head-end so the facilities team has addressable control of every fitting.
AberdeenView case study
Infrastructure renewal
£420,000
Thistle Shopping Centre
Infrastructure renewal and smart lighting
A full electrical strip-out and re-cable with a new DALI-controlled lighting system, replacing degraded legacy wiring in the ceiling voids of a live shopping centre.
StirlingView case study
Both centres remained open for trade throughout delivery. Neither project closed a mall, an atrium or a car park to complete the works.
Retail & leisure
Plan the works around the trading day
Tell us the venue, the opening hours and what cannot move. The programme is built backwards from those three facts.