Best Practice: University of Nottingham

Part of the Highfields campus, showing its proximity to Nottingham town centre

Andy Carmichael Freelance writer INTEGRATING ‘TOWN AND GOWN’ WITH SUCCESS

The University of Nottingham’s award-winning grounds team successfully marries the maintenance of high-quality playing surfaces with Green Flag-winning open space management and presentation

SIR JESSE BOOT, he of the chemist fame, is known for his donations to the city of Nottingham – not least being his financial assistance in building the then University College. Perhaps less familiar is the keen interest he held in establishing sports facilities and the health benefits of physical exercise. They were “an integral part” of the campus he helped fund.

Today, just over 90 years later, I am chatting remotely with Greg Smith who, alongside David Beadle, manages the grounds department at the University of Nottingham. While David “is a tree man”, Greg’s remit is managing and maintaining the modern vision of Sir Jesse’s sporting landscape, having moved to the organisation in 2015 from Notts County Football Club. This responsibility covers multiple sites; from the 300-acre main campus on the outskirts of the city to the modern Jubilee extension a mile further on, as well as the Sutton Bonington home of biosciences and veterinary medicine in neighbouring Leicestershire. It is a lot of green space and it needs the effort of a further 38 members of staff split across the locations to maintain them to the expected standards. A measure of their success is the fact that in addition to being named the 2019 Grounds Management Association (GMA) Redexim Charterhouse/Kubota University Grounds Team of the Year, the university has also received the Green Flag award for landscaping and grounds management annually since 2003.

Ongoing maintenance

While some of the staff have been furloughed on two occasions this year, Greg has been working throughout the lockdowns (although he has spent part of last month recovering from Covid-19!), earlier this year completing three days a week ‘on the tools’ and two days in his office. He is quick to praise the “fantastic” team during what have been unprecedented times. Particularly so as the changed circumstances in the spring allowed for more renovation than ever. Instead of the usual 32,000 resident students, there have been “around 180 or so who couldn’t get home”, making for a quieter campus but one where nature would not simply provide sports surfaces if left unchecked.

There are many playing surfaces across the three campuses; 28 natural turf football pitches, eight for rugby, and two cricket squares, plus pitches for softball and American football. The football pitches are kept at 30mm, a rise from the 25mm that was both familiar to Greg from the professional version of the sport and the height the university maintained a few years ago. The slightly raised cut, he explains, gives the grass plant that extra bit of support and they have “seen fewer weed incursions and fewer worm casts.” The cricket pitches host play at 6mm, with student use being supplemented by local side Attenborough Cricket Club. Greg is a big believer in “the more play the square gets, the better it plays”.

Plenty of play

There is certainly plenty of play at the university (in normal times). As well as the natural turf there are the multiple artificial surfaces, management of which won the team a GMA award in 2016. I get a sense of the scale of the work at the university when Greg discusses the BUCS (British Universities and Colleges Sport) Championships. This sees teams from academic institutions compete in sporting events throughout the year (Nottingham has over 100 teams alone), before many of them meet in the final BUCS Big Wednesday event. This was due to be held at the university in late March, for

There is always work to be done, to keep the many pitches at the Uninversity of Nottingham in tip-top condition, and ready to host the various sporting teams

Greg Smith, Nottingham University

THE MORE PLAY THE SQUARE GETS, THE BETTER IT PLAYS

the third year in succession, testament to the standard of the facilities and the team’s ability to host such a large-scale and prestigious tournament. Greg tells me that such events are planned for at least a year, or more like two.

Outside of the academic world, such activity may be less well-known than professional tournaments. But, given the range of sports played and number of competitors involved, they are just as much, if not more, of a logistical challenge.

In addition to the BUCS finals, the grounds team prepares surfaces for the European Touch Rugby championships and hosts World Archery events as well as the UK Ultimate Frisbee national finals – the latter being played on a pitch like a narrow football field at 100m by 37m.

Helping with marking out all these varied sports is a new robotic line marker from Rigby Taylor. Greg is enthusiastic about the time the machine is saving – “at least half a day a week and it is never furloughed”, he says, allowing the team the chance “to get on with other things”. While some of the traditional sports pitch measurements were pre-set, the line patterns for the more niche games were shared with the supplier which developed a programme to suit the university’s needs.

Keeping up the quality

A similar labour-saving decision is to move the nutrition programme away from regular liquid fertiliser application to twice-a-year feeds. Given the number of pitches to manage and the volume of play (estimated at 15,000 hours of sport to the student community and over 17,000 hours for local, national and international users) what may be considered regular tasks elsewhere take on a significant time implication at the campus grounds.

The cricket pitches were scarified during the first lockdown, and the team has its own deep tine de-compactor and aerator. Having learned his trade as a youngster sitting on a tractor during the winter months, Greg is a firm believer in “opening up pitches” to improve their long-term quality. Such images will resonate with some readers and his words offer sound advice. Greg acknowledges the “good budget” he has from “very supportive” managers, for overseeding, top dressing and chemical applications, and the grounds department reduces the demands on this by growing all their own plants. Many of these were planted up alongside the A road adjacent to the main university site, and the positive feedback is “what it’s all about” for Greg.

This integration of ‘town and gown’ and the continued pursuit of excellence in sports facility provision would no doubt delight the university’s famous benefactor. ■

Greg and his team are also responsible for maintaining artificial pitches

In addition to the Rigby Taylor robot line marker – the TinyLineMarker PRO – the University of Nottingham’s grounds team utilises a wide range of machinery and equipment, including:

Mowers:

• Jacobson (250 fairway) • John Deere (300D fairway) • Dennis (2 x 510 and 1 x 610 – all with cassette options) • Hayter (2 x Harrier)

Tractors:

• Case (75 and 95hp) which use attachments for top dressing, fertiliser and gritter spreaders, chemical sprayers and mole ploughing • Kubota 35 hp • Also available is a

Charterhouse seeder, a Vertidrain and two

Greentech slitters