RoSPA offer advice
Are your local facilities adding to the national statistics of accidents and injuries on playing fields and sports pitches?
DID you know that there are approximately 22,000,000 sports injuries every year in the UK and the average sports person will take, annually, some five days off from work, college or school? Furthermore, around 25% of those injured consequently have to give up their sport and, just as disappointing, 45% of injuries were, in some way, related to the playing surface. Are people having accidents and suffering injuries on your parks, playing fields and sports facilities unnecessarily? If you have sports pitches, are they providing good quality playing opportunities or contributing to the national sports accident statistics? RoSPA has been at the forefront of
improvements in the safety and quality of children’s play areas for many years, but play areas are not the only places children or adults use. Parks and playing fields are used by all ages and are frequently places where many avoidable injuries occur. RoSPA has set up a Sports Areas, Parks and Playing Field Division, headed by former National Playing Fields Association (NPFA) expert, Alan Penn MSc, MILAM, and a member of the British Standards Committee for sports surfaces. Before his sad and untimely death in
October last year, John Holborn, the former NPFA Technical Director, assisted Alan in this new and important service. RoSPA Performance and Safety Quality
Assessments (PSQA) include full soil analysis of pitch and playing surfaces and, of course, can include a full site Risk Assessment, as required by The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. These not only give a detailed assessment of the whole area but, also, through the detailed soil analysis for example, enable playing field managers to employ the most cost-effective methods so as to maximise the quality of playing surfaces.
Drainage is another issue where RoSPA
expertise can come to the fore. Alan Penn is one of the country’s leading experts on the subject of drainage and can provide completely independent and impartial advice on a subject that taxed many groundsmen looking after playing fields and sports pitches last year in such wet and miserable conditions. The RoSPA assessments (a comprehensive document comprising some 50 to 100 pages, depending upon number of pitches assessed), also includes budget costing for improvements and recommendations for management and maintenance techniques to assist ground staff. RoSPA’s policy is to only recommend work where it will make a measurable difference to safety or quality, and any recommendations for action will always be cost effective. Detailed specifications and drawings can be provided for tendering
Alan Penn
purposes, together with Bills of Quantity and Codes of Practice to assist clients. Full project management can also be provided, including feasibility studies and overseeing of construction work. Good playing pitch quality is important - not only to improve the quality of sport played - but for injury prevention. There is always a risk of injury when playing any sport and sometimes such injuries can be life changing. Whilst these injuries cannot be entirely eliminated they can, by correct management, be reduced to a minimum. This is why a RoSPA Quality Performance
and Safety Assessment is so important. It can also, of course, provide essential protection against spurious litigation in the event of a false claim. For more details contact Alan Penn, at
RoSPA Playsafety, The Old Barn, Wicklesham Lodge, Faringdon, Oxon, SN7 7PN, telephone 01367 224600 or email
info@rospaplaysafety.co.uk.
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