STANSTED AIRPORT - AGL CORING

In collaboration with Lagan Aviation and Infrastructure, Shepherd and Sons are part of a 10-week project to enhance the Airport ground lighting systems at London Stansted Airport.

Over the 10 weeks, our team will core out 150 AGL seating pots to reinstate the airfield ground lighting system. All works are being delivered within restricted overnight possession windows in a live operational environment, requiring detailed planning, close coordination with airport operations, and strict adherence to airside safety procedures.

We look forward to continuing the programme and supporting the ongoing enhancement of Stansted Airport’s airfield infrastructure.​

An airfield ground lighting fitting sits in a seating pot set flush into the pavement, wired back through ducting beneath. Replacing or reinstating the system means taking out the old pot without disturbing the surrounding slab, and that is a coring job: a large diameter core cut around the pot, the unit removed, and the opening prepared for the new seating. Breaking it out instead would damage the surrounding concrete and turn a fitting replacement into a slab repair.

The arithmetic is what makes this a programme rather than a series of jobs. 150 pots over ten weeks of restricted overnight possessions means a rate has to be set and held, and any night that under-delivers has to be recovered from a later one. Planning that is done before the first core, because on an airfield you cannot buy extra hours at short notice.

Every possession is escorted, every operative holds an airside pass, and the taxiway or apron is handed back serviceable before the first movement. Foreign object debris control governs the whole shift: a cored pot is a substantial piece of concrete and steel, and it is counted out of the area rather than swept up afterwards. Slurry is contained and removed for the same reason, and because airfield drainage is not somewhere to put it.

This work sits within our airfield ground lighting service and our aviation sector.

This was airfield ground lighting coring, delivered as part of our airfield surfacing sector.