Great Yarmouth Beach Lighting

Great Yarmouth is one of the top seaside resorts on the UK’s North Sea coast, a destination town with wide sandy beaches and a rich maritime heritage. The town has traditionally enjoyed a six to eight week summer tourist season, yet over recent years tourist numbers have steadily declined.

The Great Yarmouth inteGREAT Partnership
In 2003, an organization called The Great Yarmouth inteGREAT Partnership was created to find ways to regenerate the Great Yarmouth town center, seafront and heritage areas. In conjunction with residents, local businesses and other organizations, the aim is to make Great Yarmouth a safer, more comfortable and dynamic place to live, work and visit. Some £16.4 million are being put into a range of projects designed to improve facilities for residents and visitors, encourage business growth, and generally make the area more popular.

According to Rosie Couch, Marketing Communications Officer for the inteGREAT Scheme, “inteGREAT is a scheme to bring about economic regeneration. A range of projects will increase business development and trading opportunities leading to a sustainable and robust tourism industry and town centre. It’s specifically focused on what we need to do to attract visitors, not just in the summer but throughout the year. Several projects target the creation of a safer environment and improved routes and links around the town with better access to the town’s rich heritage.”

A more useable space
Phase one includes new paving for the beachfront esplanade complete with walkway lighting. The new lighting columns have a footway-type downlight to provide the correct level of lighting for pedestrians. In addition, the column also supports Martin Architectural Exterior 600 washlights that flood the beach in an ever-changing sequence of color between the esplanade and the sea, a mile stretch of beach between Wellington and Britannia piers.

“As part of this regeneration scheme, to be able to attract tourists throughout the year, whether it’s for events, day visits, short breaks, etc. we’re trying to extend the season and make the beach a more useable space,” Rosie comments. “The new colored floodlighting on the beach gives a great atmosphere.”


Exterior 600
Thirty-eight Exterior 600’s in a custom gold finish (to match the custom lamp posts) are located along the esplanade. The Exterior 600 is a programmable 575W, CMY color changer, and at an IP rating of 65 is capable of withstanding the ravages of North Sea weather. The CMY color-mixing system allows for projection of an innumerable variety of color shades. The Exterior’s are programmed and sequenced to provide color washes onto the beach, or can be used to enhance events such as evening seaside concerts. The control of the lighting is performed by a Martin PC-based LightJockey with Scheduler for the day-to-day control of the system. The LightJockey is located in a control room in a nearby council building, which allows the inteGREAT team to add to the initial programming that was made by Stage Electrics. Lighting design was a collaborative effort between the esplanade architect, inteGREAT, and Martin UK with the Martin Exteriors supplied and installed by Stage Electrics.

“One of the first effects we saw was people actually using the beach in the evening,” Rosie states. “Kids love it because they’re in the spotlight dancing around. They think it’s quite fun. You can extend the season into the darker evenings but also extend the day into the evening. It also opens up further business opportunities on the esplanade, for example cafes open in the evenings.

“It is just one part of the scheme which includes various additional lighting projects: festive lighting in the market place, pedestrianization of and changes to the road layout, a ceiling of lights from the seafront to the town center, and more – all to make the town more attractive to visitors and to make people feel safer, so lighting is a key element of that.”

Through the incorporation of dynamic lighting, Great Yarmouth found a dramatic way to attract visitors and extend the tourist season throughout the calendar year. Councillor Collins, Chairman of the Management Committee of inteGREAT, stated, “Lighting has always been an important part of the inteGREAT Scheme. We consulted residents and businesses about their concerns in the town, and safety and lighting was always top of the list along with employment. Hopefully the new lighting will encourage more people to get out and about in the evenings and provide opportunities for new or expanding refreshment or entertainment businesses.”