Softwall installed at Colston's School Sports hall refurbishment

Safety anti-shock wall panels.

The Sports hall at Colston’s School was designed in the 1980s when the standard 4 badminton size hall was 32 x 17.5m. Now Sport England give a guideline of 34.5 x 20m and the run offs around the netball court at Colston’s fall below the minimum recommended. But the Sports hall is well situated and the school believed that, with a tight budget, it could be brought up to date with new heating, lighting, sports flooring, cladding, ECB cricket nets and our unique Softwall anti-shock wall panels to give >50% impact reduction to the concrete walls.

We met with Quattro Design Architects to discuss Court Marking and a two colour Taraflex Performance sports floor, the latest and vastly improved version of the original Taraflex® floor that was installed in 1988. The new Taraflex® Performance 9mm floor has a high IPI impact protection index of 82% and Protecsol® surface treatment for easy maintenance and ‘intelligent’ sliding coefficient. You can select from 20 colours. We were able to provide drawings to help the school visualise two new colours for the floor + a revised court layout for the Director of Sport and teams to agree prior to line marking.

Softwall anti-shock panels help provide a safe and attractive sporting environment for the pupils and in particular the netball team. Softwall was installed up a height of 2.00m over the walls and doors to make the whole hall safer for sport. There is a choice of 6 colours and Alaska, the most popular colour, was chosen. We installed a beech hardwood skirting afterwards to finish off the installation.

The recent refurbishment has been a huge success with local builder K P Wilton & Son Ltd transforming the Sports hall into a beautiful and functional space. Everything has been updated and improved and the colours in the hall are clean and modern.

Simon Crossman, School Facilities Director said:

“Colston’s School have recently refurbished their Sports hall and with a limited budget, so it was important to ensure every detail was correct to ensure the hall would be fit for purpose for another 25 years. A key part of the refurbishment was the installation of the Softwall panels as the hall is not big enough to have a full run off area for netball and other sports. The Softwall panels placed on the concrete block walls would enable senior netball to take place inside the hall for the first time due to its 50% shock absorbency. At the start of the project, Rosie came to the school to talk through what we required and what other works we were undertaking in order to ensure the Softwall was compatible with these works and that the smallest detail was accounted for, such as the installation of new doors or fire alarm call points. Mark and Rosie visited the school a number of times, often leasing directly with the principal contractor which resulted in a seamless installation. The school are really pleased with the Softwall and would not hesitate to recommend them and their products to other schools.”