//Budget for Maintenance

As many schools, councils and leisure centres across the country approach a new financial year, they will soon turn their attentions to setting budgets for the next 12 months, as well as to making full use of any remaining funds at their disposal for the current fiscal term. Within this, consideration should be given to the ongoing care and maintenance of their synthetic sports surfaces, in which a large initial investment was originally made that must now be protected.

In the coming months of economic austerity, many will be looking to cut costs, and experience suggests that synthetic pitch maintenance is traditionally amongst the first casualties. But this runs the risk of creating a false economy, and it is important to remember that neglecting to properly maintain an artificial pitch or court can result even greater disruption, with obvious implications of prolonged downtime on the revenue generated by your facility.

Your maintenance budget should reflect the age of your facility and may need to be increased as the surface becomes older, if the correct care hasn’t already been afforded to your pitch. Maintenance contractors should be able to offer you a choice of maintenance packages, reflecting your individual budgets and requirements. Choose to fix the costs of your maintenance contract by signing up for a longer period such as 3 or 5 years – it will help you to budget effectively for the long term. Technical Surfaces, for example, can even produce a budgetary forecast of maintenance costs over a five or ten year period, to allow you to plan ahead.

For those looking to make the best use of their remaining funds before 31^st March, corrective processes such as a deep-cleaning Revite^® or Rejeneration^® are the ideal complements to a regular maintenance programme. Alternatively, a well-timed granular top-up or refresh of your pitch markings can help to prepare your surface for the busy summer months.