PRESS RELEASE: Town Council continues its capital investment into local sports facilities

This summer Sevenoaks Town Council has continued its capital investment into local sports facilities with improvement to rugby pitches.

In the summer much needed extensive drainage works to Knole Paddock was carried out following professional advice and agreed in consultation with SRFC. Ideally the Town Council would have liked to have started the work much earlier in the year, but SRFC did not want to lose any of its fixtures. This meant that unfortunately cricket fixtures had to be cancelled to enable the work to take place. The long drought (worst since 1976) did not help with the process of the grounds recovering from the drainage work and delays to grass germinating and preventing weed killing. We are pleased that following the change of weather and considerable effort by our Open Spaces Staff the pitch is looking good and well worth the £39,000 investment.

New floodlighting at a cost of £18,500 has also recently been installed. The new floodlighting enables improved playing conditions and also environmental improvements with less light pollution and energy consumption. The more direct lighting also reduces impact on neighbouring residential properties.

Sevenoaks Town Council had hoped to install a 3G pitch at Knole Paddock which would have been used by rugby and other sports. Unfortunately, although spending £17,000 on planning applications and the appeal process the planning inspector still turned this down.