An independent survey of Enfield Council run football pitches in the borough has found nearly three quarters are of acceptable quality or better.
The borough received complaints about the standard of some football pitches in September last year and in response Enfield Council embarked on a range of improvement works and employed an independent sports turf consultancy to assess every football pitch in the borough.
The pitches were gauged on 14 different standards, which were combined to give ratings of:
• Good quality
• Acceptable
• Unsatisfactory
• Poor Quality
• Unacceptable
Of the borough’s pitches 10 per cent were good, 62 per cent acceptable, one per cent unsatisfactory, 23 per cent poor and four per cent unacceptable.
Enfield Council’s Cabinet Member for Environment and Community Safety, Cllr Chris Bond, said: “I’m pleased that our football pitches have, generally speaking, been given a good bill of health.
“Having said that we know more work needs to be done to bring all our pitches up to an acceptable standard and we’ve been concentrating on doing that in recent months and will continue to do so in the weeks to come. I’d like to thank the Football Association for their assistance in this matter.”
The consultants found that pitches in Enfield are comparable or better than other local authority maintained pitches and found where a pitch was either poor quality or unacceptable it was, in most cases, because of general pitch surface condition. This is largely because of Enfield’s clay soil which limits drainage and means the pitches remain wet and soft throughout the winter.
In the coming weeks Enfield Council will review how the pitches are maintained both during and in the off season. The review will include an assessment of any new equipment that is required to improve the maintenance of the pitches and the programme of reinstatement to prepare the pitches for the following season. The Council is also being supported by the Football Association in the pursuit of better pitches.