SALTO Installs Networked Electronic Access Control Solution At The University Of Cambridge

SALTO GEO cylinders, which can be used with almost any type of door, has been installed at the college

SALTO Systems has seen its 1000th RFID lock installed into Jesus College, one of 31 individual colleges at the University of Cambridge.

Established between 1496 and 1516 on the site of the twelfth-century Benedictine nunnery of St Mary and St Radegund, whose ruinous buildings were adapted to house it, Jesus College like other colleges at the University is an independent self-governing body, with its own constitution, endowments and income. 

Chapel Court, one of the largest blocks of en-suite undergraduate accommodation for students, is the latest property to be updated at Jesus College. The project involves the renovation and insertion of en-suite bathrooms within historic Chapel Court, one of the largest collegiate courts in Cambridge. The six (red brick) staircases on the north-eastern wing were built in 1885 and the remaining staircases in 1928 - both wings are Grade II Listed - also created special demands for the installation of the access control system needed to provide control over entry to the building.

To solve this problem Jesus College has selected and installed a networked electronic access control solution from SALTO Systems, choosing SALTO GEO (Global Electronic Opening) cylinders that are smart, intuitive and designed to be used with almost any type of door. SALTO GEO has been specially designed and developed for use with doors where normal escutcheons cannot be fitted or are not allowed i.e. antique doors in historic or listed buildings.

Grahame Appleby, Head Porter at Jesus College, says “Having previously used a master mechanical keyed system, we had ongoing problems with students loosing keys giving us the expense of having to replace keys and locks on a regular basis.

The college has 93 external buildings to protect so we are progressively working through them updating and replacing keyed locks with stand alone wire free electronic access control from SALTO. All are controlled by 4K Mifare cards that are student ID and room cards as well as being used for print, library and restaurant functions. All the locks in the college are being supplied and installed by SALTO certificated partner AC Leigh.

The first building we updated was our student accommodation at North Court with SALTO XS4 smart handle sets. This was followed by the library building with more XS4 units and now we’ve just completed Chapel Court with GEO cylinders.

The next phase will be the college owned houses in Jesus Lane, which are being converted into student accommodation. These will be fitted with hard wired SALTO wall readers and more stand alone GEO cylinders on the external doors and all the individual student bedrooms within the properties.”

Grahame concludes “Controlling access is one of the most important security issues the college faces, and effectively securing multiple buildings and access to them has been a challenging task. However our fully networked SALTO solution gives us the ability to do this and gain maximum benefit from the technology whilst providing a secure environment for all our students and staff.”

Rex Palmer, SALTO Area Sales Manager, comments “All SALTO products are designed to be simple and easy to fit, vitally important when you’re dealing with historic doors such as those found in many of the buildings at Jesus College.

Our state-of-the-art system enables Grahame and his colleagues to turn any door into a fully featured access control door without compromising comfort, convenience, security or control. It eliminates the need to replace locks as he has previously had to do if key security is breached due to the loss or theft of key cards and allows key cards and locks to be simply and quickly updated, restricted or deleted remotely.

The SALTO Data-On-Card system in use at Jesus College is powerful, flexible, capable and cost effective. It can manage many thousands or even millions of individual doors and users if necessary, enabling users to be removed and added instantly, access rights to be modified quickly and easily, audit trail events to be retrieved from the lock remotely and much, much more.”