PUBLIC PLACES


Racecourse Playing Fields


a little unstable underfoot and people with dogs tend not to pick up the poo when grass is longer.”


David continued: “In previous years, pitches were cut once fortnightly using the Trimax Pegasus rotary gang mower - which is our workhorse. However, this year, due to having so many complaints about the length of grass on the pitches, we have stopped mowing certain areas to be able to cut once per week. We would love to use cylinder mowers, but these wouldn’t be suitable for the general park areas.” “We can’t aff ord to put drainage into any of the pitches, so we are trying to improve the surfaces by undertaking deep tine aeration work and we are looking to purchase our own machine in the near future. We’re hoping that moving to a new machine will reduce the process time from three hours to two hours per pitch, which will further enhance our resources. This will also help free up a tractor for more time, as we only have four across the whole city to perform all procedures. From


September onwards, one of those will be out hedgecutting, so that’s one tractor and operator tied up, two guys out mowing which leaves one tractor to perform all the other duties.”


“We often get asked what cultivars we use to overseed” Karl continued. “That’s irrelevant to us as there is so much footfall and usage that, without irrigation (we have a 1000 litre bowser), it’s impossible to get any establishment. Having said that, we have to be realistic in terms of what we are trying to achieve. We are in a municipal environment, therefore budgets and the nature of the setting means they are never going to be stadium pitches.”


“The other issue we have is that the season break window is becoming increasingly shorter. We are expected to take down the goalposts at the end of the season but, by the time we have got around to all the sites, they want them back up for friendlies. We designed a goalpost handler in conjunction with a local fi rm, Kilworth machinery, which has been very benefi cial


The team cover 28,000


metres of linemarking every week, for about thirty-three weeks of the year … that’s 560 miles of linemarking!


Transfer wheel marker 58 PC December/January 2021


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