There are significant costs involved in purchasing a new sporting facility or refurbishing or resurfacing an existing installation. Whether it’s a football pitch or an athletics track, the cost is often as crucial as ensuring it is fit for purpose.

To protect the investment of facility owners, the Sports and Play Construction Association (SAPCA) introduced in February this year a system to register, measure and ensure the quality of installations. This follows a successful pilot exercise run over the previous 12 months.

Strict Quality Guidelines
The Pitch and Track Registration Scheme is a register of synthetic turf pitches and athletics tracks which are being installed by SAPCA members. Its aim is to offer reassurance to facility owners and operators that by using a member of SAPCA’s Pitch & Track Divisions a synthetic pitch or athletics track project is being built to strict quality guidelines.

“New, refurbished or resurfaced synthetic turf pitches and athletics tracks represent a significant investment by facility owners,” explains Tony Hession, project manager for SAPCA. “We want to help to protect that investment. The Pitch and Track Registration Scheme helps to ensure that any scheme delivered by a specialist SAPCA contractor is built to a high standard.

“Once the order is placed for a new project, it is registered with SAPCA by the member company involved, the client is informed of the registration and given information about the scheme and the opportunity to give feedback. SAPCA undertakes random site inspections to ensure that projects are being constructed to the standards required by the association’s Codes of Practice. Post-project feedback is requested from clients to establish satisfaction levels with contractors’ performance and, in the unlikely event of any issues regarding technical quality, SAPCA can provide guidance to resolve the issue and ultimately act as a mediator if required.”

The last thing facility owners want is a costly installation that is unfit for play or needs further work. By registering all synthetic sports pitches and athletics tracks (over 3,000sq m) the SAPCA member is making a commitment to enforcing strict quality guidelines to ensure the build is fit for purpose.

The benefits are simple
Mark Oakley of SAPCA approved contractors Hunter Construction, explains that the scheme is there specifically to safeguard facility owners. He outlines some of the key benefits to the end user: “We see a number of problems with projects involving non-specialist designers and contractors, whether it’s through inadequate designs being put forward or simply because a contractor has said a proposal would work when it was, at best, an unrealistic timeframe, or even worse, an unfeasible concept.

“I would like to stress that the Pitch and Track Registration Scheme is intended as a further safeguard for a client and to offer reassurance of the quality of an installation and its contractors. It is by no means intended to replace the role of a consultant engineer or designer on a project. Contracts with difficult ground conditions, retaining walls and many other issues need the services of a consultant with a civil engineering background to ensure that the base-works and drainage are competently designed and built.”

In spite of this, like many contractors under the scheme, Oakley is adamant that it brings clear advantages: “We have found the scheme brings added value to purchasers as an assurance that the contract will be carried out to the required standard,” he adds. “And there’s always the benefit of the technical mediation service in the unlikely event that things go wrong.”

Many facility owners expect work to be carried out under independent quality assurance schemes overseen by the contractor; however, Mark argues that the SAPCA scheme “is ultimately of more worth because it is specific to the individual contract. For me, the benefits are simple. It offers assurance that the correct construction standards have been followed and that construction of the pitch, or track, is by a company that has been approved to build facilities of that type.”

It’s important that facility owners understand the real life applications of the scheme and the inherent benefits. Contractors such as Oakley serve to clarify key points and add credibility because they are actively making use of the scheme for the benefit of the sports facility developer, owner and operator.

Vital feedback to improve standards
The feedback aspect of the scheme, coupled with SAPCA’s initiative to operate a programme of random inspections to maintain a high quality of work and ensure quality standards are being met, means that any feedback received is often more likely to be objective and include any issues that otherwise may not have been raised with the contractor.

“Receiving feedback from clients is always useful to address issues or to know where systems work well,” explains SAPCA’s Tony Hession. “It is not always easy to have this feedback given honestly when sought directly, but because of SAPCA’s involvement in managing the feedback the client is more open to pointing out issues and to praising the project.

“SAPCA members are pre-qualified to carry out these types of contracts and positively encourage random inspections by the association. The possibility of this happening on a project provides encouragement to contractors to maintain their high standards.”

Creating a better play environment
Graham Finnie, lead manager of facilities for sportscotland, the national agency for sport in Scotland, is very hopeful that the scheme will be instrumental in improving standards throughout the industry.

“We are constantly looking for ways to improve and maintain the quality of sports facilities, for the benefit of both users and owners. If SAPCA’s Pitch and Track Registration Scheme can help to boost industry standards we would actively encourage people to take part in the scheme and only use approved contractors who are SAPCA members for sports and play installations.

We’re particularly interested in the feedback service the scheme offers as it can be difficult to get feedback from facility owners. Quality feedback is absolutely essential to ensure that we’re providing facilities that are fit for purpose and meet industry standards, and this is of huge benefit to facility owners for that reason alone.”

The scheme is intended to improve industry standards on a national scale and supplement the provision of sport by actively ensuring sports pitches and tracks are fit for purpose.
Feedback from the scheme is also being used by SkillsActive to help SAPCA to develop a national training strategy and plan that will help ensure a highly qualified work force for the sports and play construction industry.

Tony Hession clarifies this key issue: “The Pitch and Track Registration Scheme is ensuring that, collectively, standards of sports and play facilities across the industry continue to be raised. We would urge any facility designer, buyer or operator to use only SAPCA members for the design, construction or maintenance of their projects.”

• For more information, visit the SAPCA website: www.sapca.org.uk