Colin Burchett is the Ranger at Fair Oak & Horton Heath Parish Council, a position he has held for the past three and a half years. Amongst his responsibilities are the Lapstone Playing Fields, a facility that suffered poor playing surfaces and cancelled matches.
Colin and his staff of two have transformed the grounds to some of the best in the area.
PRIDE OF THE PARISH
F From this ....
air Oak & Horton Heath Parish Council lies just north east of Southampton in rural Hampshire. It has a population of approximately 10,000 many of whom use the sporting facilities at the Lapstone Playing Fields.
Colin Burchett is the Parish Ranger who joined the council in May 2005 having previously worked as a Streetcare and Refuse Manager at neighbouring Eastleigh Borough Council. He passed his Management NVQ Level 4 earlier this year. He is assisted by two groundsmen -
... to this in just a couple of years!
Here he explains how, with some quality new equipment, the assistance of former Southampton Head Groundsman, Dave Roberts, and by badgering Pitchcare members, he has achieved such a remarkable turnaround.
Barry Hansell, with over thirty years experience at various locations, and Matt Trickett who joined in the summer of 2006. Matt has recently attained NVQ 2 and 3 in Sports Turf Management through Sparsholt College with council backing. Both have PA1 and PA6 certification. The facilities at Lapstone include a
cricket pitch and two senior and one junior football pitches.
Football
The football pitches were laid out twelve years ago on old water meadows with nine metre centred drains. However, the old clay was put back on top, so the two senior pitches have always had drainage issues, with a third of matches being cancelled each season. The council gravel banded six years ago, but it wasn’t maintained. If it rained significantly during the week then there was no option but to cancel weekend matches.
The junior pitch faired slightly better as it is sand based, with drains every five metres, resulting in much better drainage. However, it was obvious that something needed to be done, and urgently, to improve the playing surfaces.
Independent advice was given by
Dave Roberts, the then Head Groundsman at Southampton Football Club, on how we could improve the pitches and what machinery would be best for us if we could get agreement from the council. Matt is a steward at the Saints and got to know Dave through that. We went to St Marys to help mark out the pitch for a pre-season friendly and had a long chat with Dave about our problems. Subsequently, he came over to Lapstone and spent all morning telling us what we needed to do and how we could get the best out of our new machines (subject to approval of course).
He is a really nice bloke and has been very helpful. Coupled with the excellent ongoing advice we have received from Pitchcare members on the message board I feel we are making real progress now. Based on Dave’s recommendations, and the undoubted respect that he has, the council agreed, in the autumn of 2006, to purchase a 40hp Hydro New Holland compact tractor, a Major roller mower, an Imants Shockwave, a spring tine harrow and a Browns slitter. Now we feel that we have more control over maintenance. In September 2007, White Horse
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