About
Pitch Development Hire manage bookings for Pitch Development Solutions, who design, fund and build….
How
Billy Martin, PDH Managing Director, helps to run a local youth football club. They built a small 3G pitch with basic floodlights as a training facility for evening use. The response from local youths was phenomenal. They simply could wait to play on it – organised or unauthorised!
What
PDH will design, build and fund 3G pitch facilities. The school gets free usage during the day for whatever it chooses to do. PDH manage the evening and weekend bookings. Home win for the school and community.
Why
With the advent of Sky Sports, central heating and social media, the choice is often to watch rather than play. fast food brings further issues which are well documented. Pre IT, every school had its own sports facilities or there was a sports club with its own ground. Companies even had their own private sports grounds. Outdoor training facilities in evenings consisted of cramped school gyms, church halls, jogging around the street, portable floodlights, muddy grass pitches, tarmac netball courts. Now sports facilities particularly natural grass pitches, are in rapid decline. Weeknights 5 a side is the new black. But that doesn’t solve all the problems, particularly for schools.
Schools have funding gaps and sport provision appears to be at the back of the queue as far as government grants are concerned. 3, 4 or 5th Generation artificial pitches are being installed up and down the country, courtesy of the FA. However, they are expensive to build (circa £700k) and do not necessarily solve the problem in providing sports facilities for schools.
Five a side 3G cage pitches are restrictive as far as the 11 a side game is concerned and doesn’t allow a full spectrum of curriculum sports to be played .