No more wet feet for Stowupland bowls players

No more wet feet for Stowupland bowls players

When a Suffolk bowls club faced losing valuable playing time through a waterlogged green, they turned to the north country for help - and then found the solution was almost on their doorstep.

Since the 1970s, the Stowupland Bowls Club near Stowmarket has built a growing reputation, but in recent years playing has been restricted when water on the green failed to disperse following any significant rainfall.

John Mollett, the club chairman and greenkeeper, explains: "The green gets heavy use from our 60 members between April and September each year. It seems that the old drainage system became ineffective as the ground grew more compressed, and we lost considerable playing time waiting for the water to go"

When one club member spotted a report of how specialist treatment resolved similar problems in the North of England, John contacted the company concerned - to find that C& P Soilcare was based, by co-incidence, only a few miles from Stowupland.

John Warren, general manager of C & P Soilcare, describes the task: "We decided to use our Terralift system to break up the compacted subsoil which was preventing the surface water from draining."

Initial concern of the bowls club was that the impact of the Terralift would cause substantial damage to the green's surface, but with controlled blast pressures and a top dressing and seed top-up to the probe holes there was virtually no evidence of the treatment. John Mollett comments: "It was a very professional job. By revitalising the soil down to a metre depth it also seems to have reached the old drainage system and now water clears very quickly after heavy rain."

For further information, please contact:

John Warren 01449 741012

Web link: www.soilcare.co.uk