Edinburgh Leisure - which manages and maintains all leisure facilities for Edinburgh City Council - has signed a five-year agreement with Replay Maintenance to undertake surface maintenance of its numerous synthetic sports pitches, spread across six sites.

Replay's Revive process uses a specially developed, single operator machine to remove contaminants from in-filled and water-based synthetic turf carpet as well as polymeric surfaces.

Rotary brushes penetrate deeper into the in-fill than static brushes, breaking up the contamination crust and removing it with a powerful vacuum filter system for disposal off site.

The sand or rubber in-fill is then filtered, dropped back onto the surface and worked in using a static brush head in the first instance, followed by a drag mat.

The process helps reduce compaction of the surface, enhances its porosity and helps maintain the playing characteristics.

Luke McGeechan at Replay Maintenance says it's an increasing trend: "We are seeing more and more customers who want regular maintenance to support what their groundsmen are doing.

"Service agreements are a great way of scheduling the specialist maintenance of synthetic sports surfaces but at a known cost over the short or long-term. State-of-the-art processes, such as Revive, keep sports pitches playing better for longer."

All Replay service agreements, which can be set at intervals to suit the customer, include - free of charge - pre- and post-maintenance tests with the Fieldman testing device. This records the difference the maintenance is making to the playing surface and enables the operator to plan future maintenance far more effectively.