SALTO’s Electronic Locking Systems Secure Cardinal Newman College

SALTO’s XS4 product range including the E9450 handle were installed on over 250 doors across campus

A Catholic Sixth Form College situated in the heart of Preston city centre, Cardinal Newman College strives to be a centre of educational excellence for the community built on faith, respect and trust. It is set on a unique and compact campus and over the past two years has embarked on an extensive redevelopment programme which has seen the College benefit from state of the art new facilities. This programme is on-going.

With its existing mechanical locking system becoming outdated, the College was made aware by Saturn Architectural, a SALTO Certificated Partner, that its problems with security and key control could be solved by the latest Mifare smart card systems which could remove the problems of lost keys and the associated cost of replacing locks.

Nick Peacock of Saturn Architectural explains “With young students on campus it is vital that we provide 24/7 on-campus security to ensure their safety at all times. The College is a very busy environment with lots of high-user traffic on its doors so it was vital that the security solution we recommended was robust, technologically advanced and capable of standing the test of time, which is why we chose to put forward SALTO Systems products.”

Products from SALTO’s XS4 range including the E9450 handle set in both stainless steel and powder coated finishes were installed on over 250 doors across campus to step up security. Smart, secure and innovative, the stand alone XS4 electronic handle sets need no hard wiring and provide a totally wire free networked electronic locking solution with a great range of features.

The college has been very impressed with the technical ability of the products, in particular the ability to read, receive and write information

To compliment these around 20 SALTO GEO electronic cylinder locks consisting of half cylinders and padlocks were fitted to store and plant room doors. These are fully integrated with the XS4 platform and their versatile, compact size made them an ideal solution for these doors where fitting a conventional electronic handle set was not required.

Another area that required attention was the lifts within the College. These had suffered from some abuse which was costing money to make good so the lift call buttons were replaced with electronic readers, and now only less able bodied students and staff can call the lifts. This has eliminated the problem.

Nick Peacock continues: "SALTO Systems has a very strong reputation, particularly within the education sector, and so we were very comfortable with installing their products. The project ran in two phases, with Phase One being new build construction with SALTO product going straight in and Phase Two being retro-fit replacement of existing mechanical locks.

The College has been very impressed with the technical ability of the products, in particular the ability to read, receive and write information via the College’s student and staff ID cards. Since most access related information is kept encrypted on these cards, the locks are able to update and receive information from the cards.