STARSS in their eyes?
Tonight Matthew, Dr Tim Lodge is going to sing the praises of consultants. Not those ‘money for nothing’ management types, but the consultant agronomists who assist with contracts. Without them you might be in ‘dire straits’
I
’ve been in the sports turf industry for over twenty years now, but I would never profess to know everything about it.
Recently, I attended the STARSS (Science, Technology and Research into Sport Surfaces) conference at Loughborough where I learned many new and interesting things from sports surface research workers from around the world. We must never stop learning and no one can claim to know everything.
At the conference, I listened to a
representative of the RFU extolling the virtues, as a means of achieving the highest quality of surface, of a ‘preferred supplier’ agreement. My understanding of this was that grant aid from the sporting body would only be awarded to projects developed and run by one of a small number of preferred 3G carpet manufacturers. For those projects that involve the installation of such a pitch, the carpet manufacturer would, by default, become the main contractor. Now, I can see that this would resolve issues of liability if things go wrong. What is less obvious is how this approach would maximise the quality of the end product. The carpet manufacturers I have met certainly know a great deal about carpet manufacture, and I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to defer to their judgement on matters related to the manufacture of carpets. I would have some reservations, however, about consulting them on issues to do with sports surface construction in the wider sense.
Many of the speakers at the Loughborough conference were, undoubtedly, experts in their particular field, for example the quantification and
interpretation of playing quality characteristics of 3G surfaces. There was also a half day session on natural turf which, for me, is a fascinating subject which poses more technical problems than artificial surfaces and is therefore the more rewarding area to work in. A contractor I spoke with once described a 3G pitch as a car park with a carpet on top. They are certainly more complicated than this, but the installation of these things is, actually, not rocket science, and there will be some carpet manufacturers who have a very good understanding of the processes involved. This preferred supplier thing could work.
But, sports facility development projects usually involve a lot more than the selection and installation of a carpet on a constructed base. For example:
- the Environment Agency and local planning authorities are becoming increasingly interested in the attenuation capacity of 3G pitches and their propensity to generate surface run-off and increase flood risk
- there are, invariably, technical and planning issues surrounding the design of the floodlighting system
- the specific form of the fencing around a 3G pitch can be chosen from a wide range of options which have a similarly wide range of prices
- in a wider sense, community development experts are increasingly concerned about the consequences of enclosing areas of what has often been considered public open space
- very often, moderately sized projects also involve the development of some natural turf pitches and all the complexity that that entails
- A well-designed project should have considered all of these things, and a lot more besides. The solutions to the various problems and impositions should, in each case, be incorporated into the design to the best of the designer’s ability. This seems an awful lot of responsibility to place on someone with a background in carpet manufacture
The larger contractors themselves have also been drawn towards this over-arching approach through what is known as ‘design and build’. I’m in danger of upsetting people I know and respect here, so I shall try to tread carefully. There are many individuals working for
larger sports turf contractors for whom I have a great deal of respect, and who genuinely aspire to delivering the highest standards to their clients. In the purely commercial sense, however, this is not their primary function. Their main purpose is to win contracts and maximise profits for the companies concerned. ‘We want an all-weather pitch for our team to train on. Obviously, because there’s no grass on it, it’s going to be cheaper for us to maintain. How much is that going to cost us Mr Contractor, and can you rebuild that natural turf pitch while you’re about it?’ That’s slightly simplistic perhaps. I don't want to sound patronising, but I reckon it’s not dissimilar to at least some conversations that have taken place in the past. The thing is that many projects, if they are to be done
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