PREMIER League money will help to fund new floodlights which Wellington Football Club wants to install at its Playing Field ground, off North Street.

The club has applied for planning permission to replace its eight ageing 50-feet high metal halide floodlights with four 60-feet tall LED lighting columns.

Using fewer floodlights will mean Wellington Cricket Club can play on its nearby wicket without the football club having to remove the lighting columns.

Abacus Lighting sales manager Josh Egginton said the old lights were costly to run and maintain, while the LED floodlights were more energy efficient and economical to run and maintain.

Mr Egginton said the LED floodlights also had a longer design life which was making them a preferred choice for sports facilities up and down the country.

The lighting level of the new floodlights would be the same as the current lights and only the infrastructure for new technology was being replaced.

Mr Egginton said the football club was able to access a fund provided by the Premier League and Football Foundation aimed at making grass roots clubs more sustainable on the pitch by upgrading facilities.

He said Abacus carried out a structural survey of the existing floodlight masts and found they could not be re-used due to their condition and needed to be replaced.

Mr Egginton said the opportunity was being taken to change the layout of the floodlighting system with the new masts located in a way to enable cricket to be played in the summer.

The new lighting was the minimum required to perform the relevant lighting task to meet FA ground grading criteria and was specifically designed to minimise the risk of light spillage beyond the football club site boundary with any overspill into gardens no more than moonlight.

Sixty-feet tall masts were proposed to achieve low vertical overspill and good uniformity on the playing surface without compromising cost.

Mr Egginton said the masts offered a slimline profile to minimise their daytime impact.

Reducing the height would mean the floodlights being elevated above the horizontal to maintain compliant lighting levels and resulting in increased overspill and glare.