Summer Sports - Cricket & Bowls
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Although this situation might be perfectly acceptable to those local council tax payers who play bowls or cricket, it is less so to the vast majority who do not
Council was £88 five years ago. This year, the fee stands at £102, a figure
capable of producing a maximum annual income of little more than £5,000 from a facility used for between five and six months by fifty club members, if that. The result is a significant shortfall in
revenue required to pay for the staff and machinery needed to keep bowling greens and cricket squares in optimum condition over a six to seven month season, placing a disproportionate demand on council tax coffers. Although this situation might be perfectly acceptable to those local council tax payers who play bowls or cricket, it is less so to the vast majority who do not. As memberships of bowling clubs continue
Carmarthenshire County Council’s northern area mobile fine turf team, Simon Hutton (left) and Dylan Jones
to decline, it is of little surprise that more and more councils are looking at handing- over the ownership and responsibility for maintaining the green to the club itself. The same applies to cricket. With annual budgets, council tax rises and public spending levels coming ever-more closely under the microscope, Carmarthenshire County Council, in common with other authorities throughout Britain, took a long, hard look at the figures to see where cost savings could be made. The axe finally fell over the winter of
2012/13 when the seventy-strong groundstaff team employed by Carmarthenshire County Council was reduced to forty-one, four of those retained being fine turf specialists. Of those laid off, the majority took voluntary redundancy. As a result of the staff reductions, only
three out of the original eleven sites looked after previously throughout the summer months by a resident groundsman have remained manned, but at a reduced level of staffing. These three sites - all classed as high
The southern area mobile fine turf team members, Mark Preece (left) and Clive Robertson, with Gareth Howells (centre), the council’s assistant grounds maintenance manager
60 I PC AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2014
profile - are at Parc Howard on the northern outskirts of Llanelli, which has two well-used bowling greens; Parc y Dre, located adjacent to Llanelli Town Hall and offering a bowling green and a synthetic all-weather surface; and Ammanford Park, which has a bowling green and a cricket pitch situated close to the
proving a valuable addition to the mobile fleet for maintaining cricket squares and other grass areas
John Deere R54RKB rotary roller mowers are
centre of Ammanford, a former coal mining town with a population of around 5,500 located equidistant from Carmarthen and Llanelli. The council’s remaining sports facilities,
where fine turf summer sports surfaces had previously received the attention of a full- time resident groundsman from spring to early autumn, are now being tended up to three times a week through the season by two mobile two-man teams, comprising the four fine turf specialists retained when Carmarthenshire County Council was forced to pare its groundstaff numbers by around forty percent. In addition to the reduction in staff numbers, Carmarthenshire County Council has cut back dramatically on the quantity of materials used for turf maintenance. Annual expenditure on topdressings, for example, has fallen from almost £40,000 to around £10,000 in three years, whilst overseeding now takes place only when strictly necessary in order to minimise the need for more costly renovations later. Because of the specialist equipment,
training and qualifications required, tasks such as large-area spraying, servicing of bowling irrigation systems and the autumn renovation of cricket squares and bowling greens has remained in the hands of professional contractors including Complete Weed Control, Avonmore Associates and Wayne Duggan. Losing resident groundstaff at the majority
of the council's summer sports facilities did produce a visible negative impact from spring 2013 onwards, as Gareth Howells explained. “The level of litter at many of those sites
went from zero to nuisance level,” he said. “Previously, the resident groundsman would deal with dropped litter and empty the bins throughout the day, as and when needed, so that the facility always looked neat and tidy. Now, we have a dedicated team visiting every facility throughout the week to collect and remove litter.” This operation is supported by the two
mobile, two-man teams who are working every Monday, Wednesday and Friday
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