Surface Tensions

Willoughby City Council’s Gore Hill Oval in Sydney is a fl agship sports fi eld development using artifi cial turf. Credit: Willoughby City Council.

Martin Sheppard explores Perceptions, Reality and Arguments around Synthetic Sports fi elds

In March this year, the Sydney Morning Herald and various associated papers featured an article on the community concern regarding Councils across Sydney replacing old grass ovals with synthetic playing fields.

By quoting various ‘experts’ who offered emotional commentary to the argument in areas that they were not qualified in, the NSW Planning and Public Spaces Minister, Rob Stokes was prompted to order his department to review the sustainability of artificial turf playing surfaces

The question should be asked, why has this come about?

Over the past decade or so, as the intensity of populations has increased in inner-metro municipalities, the natural turf sports fields have become more stressed with the intense usage. Due not only to the increased population needs, but also the extension of some sports codes from winter into summer competitions, natural turf fields have less time to rejuvenate.

Artifi cial turf allows near year round use to cater for increased sports fi eld demand.

The consequence of which is that with up to 50 hour usage over 30 or more weeks of the year, no principle style field can cope with that intensity. Some local governments have rightly invested in better natural turf infrastructure, such as improved drainage and irrigation which reduces some of the stress on natural grass. It allows the grass to manage the increased loads better, but still cannot cope with 100+ children/athletes, over 40 or so hours a week.

This is when many local Councils explore the use of synthetic technology.

While increased access to sports fields is welcomed by participants, community groups are often less happy with such change and all-too-often look to arguments to prevent synthetic playing field developments. Fuelled by internet research they raise alarms, which in turn encourages the broader community to stand-up with this argument. This is where mis-information fuels perceptions, which turns into reality.

The consultation program being undertaken on Minister Stokes behalf, between the community groups, users and local government has been facilitated by environmental consultants, looking to achieve a balance between usege needs and environmental concerns.

Findings from this review are due to be presented to Minister Stokes in the near future.

The reality is that the majority of the community concerns can be addressed easily, their issues are actually masking their real concerns. In the past decade, all of the community ‘calls to action’ have been because the community feel that they are going to be displaced or inconvenienced by the synthetic turf field being installed. Their fear is that ‘their’ parkland will be so busy that they won’t be able to walk their dogs when they want or take the family down for a kick-around, or that it will be so noisy due to the added usage. Indeed the added usage will have the lights on longer, more cars and even reduce value of their property.

I would say that to counter this, the community need to be part of the journey, involved by ensuring good consultation is conducted and some pragmatic management practices introduced.

The answers to the key concerns that objectors raise include: •Microplastics - The concern about the small pieces of rubber infill will migrate from the field into the soil or water courses. Although this was possible in earlier designs, the latest designs include mitigation strategies to minimise this. The Australian standard TR CEN 17519 Guide on how to minimise infill dispersion into the environment, has been approved in April 2021 by the Standards Australia Committee, with organisations including Play Australia, Sport and Recreation Victoria, Scouts Australia, Kidsafe Australia, Sydney Children’s Hospital network and various engineering, landscaping and industry groups. Smart Connection Consultancy has also published a new Smart Guide - Volume 7: Minimising the Impact of Microplastics in the Environment, which identifies 25 ways to reduce the impact and migration of microplastics.

Embracing these suggestions to the design, the procurement, construction and management, will reduce 99% of any migration of microplastics. •Injuries - Significant international research has been used to reduce injuries by defining the performance standards of synthetic sports surfaces which are far in excess of the approach Australia takes to local community sports natural turf fields. Each of our sports adopt these International Sports Federation standards and have agreed to standards specific to Australian needs. •Accessibility - All sports encourage greater and broader usage by all cohorts of the community and are committed to ensuring that the fields should not be locked up and any fences are low and should be used to protect passive users of the parkland. •Economic Costs - Although the initial cost may seem higher, the fields allow for three times the usage when compared with those of natural turf fields. When these figures are made comparable the synthetic fields are actually cheaper per hour of use to build, maintain and replace over 10, 20 and 30 years. •Recycling at end of life - All new fields should be designed in accordance with sustainable best practice, with only fields that can be recycled fully once their end of life is achieved. A new recycling company is currently looking to invest into Australia to accommodate these fields, it is estimated that this will be in the next two to three years. •Heat - The surfaces do get warmer than natural fields in certain circumstances (UV radiation high and no clouds) and similar to wet weather, when natural turf fields have to be closed on either safety grounds or to protect the field for future use. This may be up to 10 days a year in wet weather and synthetic fields are at the opposite end of the spectrum. It needs to be accepted that in certain parts of Australia that the heat could impact their playing experience and may need to be closed. All sports have their own heat policies and each sport has agreed to review these with the synthetic fields.

The challenge will always be that some people in the community are not interested in sport and have created their lifestyles around the parks and playing fields in their area. Local government has to balance their commitment to providing opportunities for people to play and recreate with environmental management of their open space. With the continued growth of inner city living, the density of our populations continues to provide challenges to local governments. Synthetic surfaces are one way of addressing this challenge, especially when there is a lack of open space.

I suggest 10 ways of making the planning process easier for the community could include: 1.Plan synthetic football fields to be part of a larger district set of playing fields, not just a single field if possible 2.Consider the design to be multi-sport and not just for single use 3.Ensure that microplastics, environmental and health best practice guides are adopted 4.Explore fields being placed on top of car parks and buildings to reduce loss of natural playing fields where possible 5.Assess ability for synthetics to collect water for neighbouring fields to allow them to be watered 6.Where residential communities are close to the park, consider the use of them and lights closing at 9.30pm 7.Develop a masterplan for the site to ensure passive and community usage is also ‘upgraded’ on the site 8.Address car parking, lights and noise to the area through secondary environmental design 9.Ensure that the system procured can be 100% recycled at the end of its life and where possible, use components that can be re-used (such as shockpads with 30 years of useage) 10.Gain the support for the design, management and maintenance from key community sports groups Martin Sheppard, Managing Director of the Smart Connection Consultancy Pty Ltd and Chair of ActiveXchange Australia & NZ, is a leading industry consultant specialising in sports surface provision.