As reported in yesterday's Evening Telegraph, today's Courier and on Wave 102 news, there has been concern about the latest injury of a football player, who was injured by falling due to exposed stones on a pitch at Riverside recently.
This has occurred before - back in December 2011 - so I was very concerned to learn of this further injury. I contacted the City Council’s Environment Department seeking an assurance that the stones problem on the pitch area will be fully resolved urgently.
I have now received feedback from the City Council Environment Department as follows :
"The pitches were stone-picked the week before the football match in question and what we have done since is cut the grass on the site so that we can detect any potential stones that may cause injury and we are carrying out an operation called verti-draining the pitch. We normally use this machine to assist with surface drainage of pitches and what we are hoping it will do is to break up soil compaction and bring any large stones to the surface. We will then give the pitch a thorough inspection and remove any large stones.
We therefore hope to have the pitch operational as soon as possible. We are taking a cautious approach and it may be that if this does not work then we may have to look at the possibility of applying a further layer of screened topsoil at sufficient depth so that it should eliminate any risk of stones coming through."
I am meeting a representative of the football league and a senior member of the City Council's Environment Department about the matter on-site next Thursday as I am anxious to see a swift resolution of this and an assurance that all steps have been taken to avoid further injuries in the future.
I was on Wave 102 news about this concern this morning - click 'play' below to listen: