Salto provides electronic access control to Clifton College
(22/08/2007)

Clifton College, the UK’s leading independent boarding school for girls and boys aged 3 -18 years, has chosen SALTO Systems as the ‘one-stop-shop’ for their electronic access control needs. The Bristol based school awarded the installation contract to approved local SALTO business partner, Gem Security Centre Ltd.

As part of a rolling plan to upgrade its security and access control facilities the school has just completed Phase 1 of the programme, installing 30 Mifare controlled online locks from SALTO into dormitory buildings and individual entranceways. Future plans will also include use of the Mifare card system for cashless vending as well as access control purposes.

Jim Caola, MD of Gem Security Centre Ltd commented: “Almost all of today’s schools including Clifton College have a need for some type of access control system. Traditionally, however, one of the main problems with building management in the educational sector has been that access control has usually just been applied to perimeter doors or other sensitive points – leaving the remaining doors secured by conventional mechanical locks. This leaves one major weakness in the system - key control."

He added: "As Clifton College has discovered, by incorporating the SALTO Virtual Network (SVN) into their upgrade programme, they have removed this weakness and eliminated any potential problems with key control. Conventional hard wiring of an entire school or college with a fully on-line system is usually prohibitively expensive and is not always achievable due to specialised mains power requirements and network cable runs. By using SVN however, a perfect balance between cost and control can be achieved."

SVN provides 90% of what users would get from a fully wired online system at the cost of a stand alone system, and it uses distributed intelligence in the locks and cards to allow them to manage their access control requirements in a secure and comfortable way.

It eliminates the need to replace locks when key security is breached due to the loss or theft of cards, allows cards and locks to be updated, restricted or deleted remotely and eliminates the need to walk around the site updating locks with a programmer.

The 8 sets of automatic locking and unlocking timers built into the SVN controlled lock handles allow for automated free and restricted access to common areas through the day, while the timed toggle setting for the classrooms allows staff to unlock doors for lessons knowing that the door will automatically re-lock at the end of the day if it is left open.

Dean Pendlebury, SALTO Systems UK Sales Manager, said: “With the installation of their new SALTO access control system Clifton College no longer has the worry or cost of changing lock cylinders, but now has the ability to cancel out cards from their system when personal leave, lose or do not return them. This enables them to maintain high levels of security ensuring the school provides a secure and accessible environment for all its users.”