Community Facility Lighting Questions Checklist

List every group that uses the facility and note, for each one, whether darkness genuinely affects them or whether the request has been carried forward on their behalf.

Requests travel through a committee until nobody can say which group first raised them or what they actually wanted.

Keep a dated record of sessions that finish early, move elsewhere or do not happen because the light has gone, noting which group each one belonged to.

A dated record of lost sessions is the most concrete thing a committee can bring to any later conversation with anybody.

Note how use changes between term time and school closure periods, since the groups affected by darkness are often not the ones using the site at other points in the calendar.

Shared facilities run on several different patterns of use, and a lighting case built on only one of them tends to fall apart.

Record which sessions involve juniors or younger pupils and when those sessions would need to finish, separately from adult use of the same facility.

Junior finishing times drive most of the demand for light in the darker part of the year, and they are set by the group rather than by equipment.

Note whether enquiries about hiring the facility already assume that it is lit, and write down what enquirers have actually asked for.

What hirers ask for describes demand more honestly than a committee discussion about what might prove popular.

Note whether organised or competitive play after dark is intended by any group, and carry that forward as an open question rather than an assumption.

What lighting any level of organised play requires is confirmed with the relevant governing body and never assumed from general use.

Walk the route people take from the road, the parking area or the nearest stop to the facility after dark, and note where it is unlit, uneven or shared with vehicles.

The arrival route is where people spend longest in the dark, and it is left out of almost every lighting discussion.

Note where people wait to be collected at the end of a session, and whether that spot is visible from anywhere or tucked behind a building.

Waiting to be collected is the part of an evening session that parents and carers raise first, and it rarely appears on any plan.

Note whether the equipment store, container and bin area can be reached and used after dark, since gear is put away at the very end of a session.

Putting equipment away happens after anything over the playing area would sensibly be switched off, and it is a routine part of every evening booking.

Note which gates are locked at the end of a session and whether the person locking them is doing so in complete darkness.

Locking up is the last task of the evening and is usually done by whoever is left rather than by anybody appointed to it.

Note the route between the playing area and any toilets, clubroom or pavilion, and record whether that route is lit at present.

Routes to buildings sit outside the facility itself and are frequently assumed to be covered by whatever is being proposed.

List the lights that already come on at this site after dark, including lamps on buildings, neighbouring premises and any street lighting nearby.

Whether existing lighting can be altered, reused or relied upon is for a suitably qualified electrical professional to establish.

Mark on a plan every home, garden and upper window facing the facility, including properties on land the group does not control.

Upper windows are the ones missed from ground level and the ones residents raise first once a proposal becomes public.

How far light travels from any arrangement is assessed by a qualified lighting professional rather than judged by eye.

Write down what residents have already said about evening use of the site, recorded factually and with dates, without the committee view alongside it.

An accurate record of what has been raised is what the local authority and any professional will want to see first.

Decide and record who speaks for the group when residents ask questions, so that different members do not give different answers about the same proposal.

Inconsistent answers from a committee damage a lighting proposal more reliably than the proposal itself ever does.

Decide whether the group intends to inform residents or genuinely consult them, and write down which it is before the first letter or meeting.

Consultation that turns out to have been an announcement is the point at which community facility projects lose local support.

Agree how comments and objections will be recorded, who holds that record and how a resident can see that their point was noted.

A visible record of comments is far easier to keep now than to reconstruct once a proposal is being examined by others.

Confirm locally what applies to lighting this site before positions, hours or equipment are discussed, and note who was asked and when.

What consents or restrictions apply to lighting a shared facility varies by location and must be confirmed with the local authority.

List everybody who currently holds a key or entry fob for the site, including hirers, coaches, contractors and former committee members.

Key holding grows quietly on community sites, and lighting hands every one of those people the ability to leave it on.

Note who is genuinely last to leave after each type of session, and whether that person changes from one booking to the next.

Whoever is last out is the one who switches off, and on a shared site that is rarely the same person twice.

Note where one group leaves while another is still using the facility, and how switching would be handled at that handover.

Overlapping bookings are where lighting is left on and where blame later settles on whichever group is easiest to name.

Note where controls could sensibly be reached from, and whether the person locking the gate would pass them on the way out.

Controls that are not on the route out get used badly, which is a planning decision rather than an equipment one.

Note what the hire agreement or booking terms currently say about switching off and locking up, and whether anybody ever checks that it happened.

Booking terms written before a facility was lit usually say nothing about the one task that generates complaints.

Write down any suggestion of timers, automatic switching or remote control that has been raised, and carry it forward as a question rather than a solution.

Whether any control arrangement suits this facility is for a suitably qualified electrical professional to determine.

Note which organisation the electrical supply belongs to, and photograph the board or meter position including any labelling visible on it.

Everything about a supply, its condition and what it can serve is for a suitably qualified electrical professional to establish.

Check the lease, licence or community asset agreement the group holds for anything about alterations, fixed equipment or use of services.

What a lease or site agreement permits is for a suitably qualified adviser to interpret rather than for a committee to read.

Note what else the same supply serves, such as a school building, a pavilion, a pump, an alarm or a storage container.

Anything sharing a supply becomes part of the discussion the moment new equipment is proposed to run from it.

Record which body is responsible for the supply and who would have to agree before anything new was connected to it.

Responsibility for a supply is easy to establish now and becomes contested the moment something is connected without asking.

Walk the likely route from the supply to the facility and note everything it would cross, including playing surface, paths, roots, boundaries and land in other ownership.

The route is often more disruptive than the lighting itself, and it is usually looked at only after positions have been discussed.

Write down anything known about cabling already run to the area, including for lighting long since removed, and mark plainly what is only remembered rather than recorded.

Old cabling on community sites is a question rather than an asset until a qualified professional says otherwise.

Decide who is expected to notice and report a lighting fault, given that the people using the facility in the evening are often not the people managing it.

On community sites faults are noticed by users and reported to nobody, which is how a lit facility quietly becomes an unlit one.

Write down the route a report would take from a user to somebody able to arrange a repair, and check that route does not depend on one individual.

Reporting routes running through a single volunteer stop working the moment that person steps back from the committee.

Note how a maintenance vehicle or working platform would reach each part of the facility, including whether it would cross a playing surface or a school field.

Access for maintenance is settled at the same moment as position, and machinery crossing a pitch creates its own arguments.

Note whether repairs would have to be carried out around bookings or outside school hours, and who would need to be told before anybody attended.

Attendance on a school or hired site is rarely as simple as arranging a visit, and that shapes how quickly anything gets put right.

Start a written record of faults, outages and repairs from the outset, kept with the group papers rather than in one person messages.

A record that lives with the group survives a change of committee, which personal messages on a phone do not.

Note anything that would grow into, lean over or obstruct possible lighting positions in time, such as hedges, trees or a neighbouring boundary.

Work to trees or hedges may be restricted and must be confirmed with the local authority and a qualified arboricultural professional.

Gather the use record, night photographs, plan, supply notes and resident comments into one set, and give exactly the same set to everybody consulted.

One consistent set of information makes different professional views comparable and stops the account changing between conversations.

Photograph the facility and its surroundings after dark from several standing points, keeping the date and time with each picture.

Night photographs become the reference everybody argues from later, and they are almost never taken before a proposal is made.

Ask a qualified lighting professional what assessment of this site and its surroundings they would carry out before proposing anything at all.

Knowing what assessment exists lets a group ask for it rather than accept an arrangement chosen from a catalogue.

Check whether any grant or funding agreement attached to the facility carries conditions about alterations, hours of opening or public access.

Conditions attached to a grant or award are confirmed with the body that made it, never read across from another site.

Ask which body sets guidance on lighting for the sports played here, and how the group would confirm what applies to this particular facility.

What a governing body expects for a sport or level of play must be confirmed with that body directly.

Write a short list of the questions this group cannot answer itself, marking against each one whether it belongs with a professional, the local authority or a governing body.

Sorting questions by who owns them stops a committee quietly deciding things it has no standing to decide.