Creating a safe, sustainable, and attractive traffic-free path for pedestrians and cyclists.

Waddesdon is a village six miles West of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. The village is home to the beautiful Waddesdon Manor, a National Trust property which attracts over 400,000 visitors a year. Despite Aylesbury Parkway Train Station being a stone’s throw to the National Trust Property, most visitors opted to travel by car, mainly because the busy A41 presented a barrier to those wishing to cycle or walk to the station.

Greenways and Cycleroutes is a charitable community benefit society who aim to create better walking and cycling routes for the community. The charity’s objective was to create a safe, sustainable, attractive and traffic-free path for pedestrians and cyclists well away from the busy A41.

The challenge

To make cycling and walking a more attractive option, Greenways and Cycleroutes knew they had to design a sustainable and safer access route and therefore proposed constructing a new 4km path along an old Roman road. This new path was to be called the Waddesdon Greenway. Volunteers helped to build bridges, fill and lay sandbags, build benches and plant hedgerows and trees.

Initially, only a small amount of lighting to highlight unexpected bends, gates and bollards along the path was intended. The charity originally thought that lighting the whole path would be detrimental to the local environment and biodiversity of the area. However Greenways and Cycleroutes later made the decision that given the rural location of the path, low level lighting was required for safety reasons and sought to find a lighting supplier that had an environmentally friendly option.

The solution

Greenways and Cycleroutes approached Solareye to provide a sustainable lighting solution that required little maintenance and with the help from volunteers, installed 162 solareye80 solar ground lights.

In addition to the solareye80s, Greenways and Cycleroutes also installed Bat Hats, a conservation-friendly version of the solareye80 which reduces upward light spillage by 98 per cent, but appears indistinguishable from the side profile. Bat Hat lights were installed through conservation areas of the site in order to minimise the lights’ disruption on the local wildlife. In addition, Greenways and Cycleroutes used red flashing solareye80s to highlight obstacles on the path such as gates and bollards.

The benefits

Designed in the UK, solareyes provide a way-finding glow, which is not only pleasing to the eye but also provides a sense of safety and security.

Solareyes are constructed from industrial grade polycarbonate which has been compression tested to 55 tonnes, certifying the ground light with an impact rating of IK10 and ensuring maximum protection against physical damage.

Solareyes are also fully waterproof (IP68 certified), skid resistant, cheap to install and require virtually no ongoing maintenance.

A word from the customer

“We chose Solareye because we needed a specialist supplier who was supportive of our work, their commitment and enthusiasm shone through the project. The solar lights have become a noteworthy element of the overall route, and if we had more funds, we would have installed more.”

– John Grimshaw CBE & Project Engineer

John Grimshaw also noted numerous additional benefits of the solar ground lighting, including:

• They provide a low-level lighting solution that limits the effect of light pollution on open countryside.
• At the same time, solareye80 provides suitable lighting for pedestrians and cyclists at night.
• An economical, low maintenance lighting option that is visually appealing and highly effective.

To download this case study as a PDF click here. If you would like to find out whether Solareyes are right for your project please get in touch with our specialists by calling 0845 293 8062 or completing our online form here.