G1 Ltd - Retail Development - Southampton, WestQuay Shopping Centre

Date: 15 Mar 2006

Shopping Centre specialist systems integrator, G1 Ltd has designed, installed and project managed the integration of new and existing equipment into a completely new control room at WestQuay Shopping Centre in Southampton.

Located in Southampton City Centre, WestQuay is the premier shopping destination on the South Coast and is operated by Hammerson Management Services and has two car parks with around 4,000 parking spaces. The major security objectives for the shopping centre is to improve life safety systems, site security and public safety.

Chris Best Director of G1 comments that "The control room at WestQuay has a very calm, efficient and professional working atmosphere. Our client, Jo Tallack had a very clear view of what she wanted to achieve and I am delighted with the results. This was the first time our Interior Designer included elements of Feng Shui directly into a control room environment and there were some old fashioned looks from a few of the control room staff when the compass came out! The project has been very successful indeed."

For the new control room, G1 installed 20 high resolution JVC 21-inch monitors (TM-A210G) in the monitor wall. The monitor wall is positioned to allow 247 security cameras to be viewed comfortably from the operator's desks at any one time. Nine 17-inch flat-screen LCD monitors from JVC (GD-17L1G) are positioned on 2iQ monitor supports on the operators workstations for spot monitoring and playback. G1 also provided a "DiG1tal" digital recording system that operates in real-time and has a fast access rate. Systems integration of the air-conditioning, room lighting systems, storage, LAN computer network was also achieved. The access control was also centralized for ease of use. The stylish, durable and terracotta coloured control room furniture was designed and manufactured by Gresham Wood Technical Furniture & Design.

The security monitoring of the shopping centre needed to be operational during the building of the new control room. G1 created a temporary monitoring station that ensured minimal disruption. Jo-anna Tallack, Customer Services Manager at WestQuay explains her requirements, "we needed to improve the layout of the control room and to make it more user-friendly for operators. We also wanted to ensure that it was compliant with both the DDA and H&S requirements by following guidelines from both enforcement agencies along with the CCTV User Group, to ensure our practices are both compliant and up to the minute. WestQuay is such a big shopping centre and CCTV surveillance is critical. It was also important to provide a warmer, calmer environment. Operators find the new control room easy to use and G1 even provided training to make them familiar with the new environment."

Jo-anna Tallack comments on the G1 team "G1 are extremely professional and very friendly. Both Chris Best and Martin Parry, Directors at G1 started the project with me some twelve months ago. Adam Personson-Smith, Technical Services Manager has project-managed the installation whilst on-site. Adam worked extremely hard to ensure that there was minimal disruption to the team, allowing us to operate a temporary monitoring station in the control room throughout the entire project, maintaining our high level of security."

The security control room at WestQuay Southampton

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