Concrete rink surrounds

[Dave Smith]

I bowl outdoors in Peterborough (UK). The council have installed concrete surrounds on three council run rinks in the city. Cost lots of money and they are clearly trying to help.
They started a few weeks ago and we are due to start bowling on 1st May.
The surrounds are large U shaped sections about a meter wide. Earth is piled up around them and grassed over. None of the workers were bowlers so we had to explain that we would need a flat but to put dead bowls on.
The concrete is covered with green plastic matting. The ditch is filled with shredded car tyres and has drainage holes. There are gaps in the concrete - small ones to let players on and off and a larger one (couple of meters) to let the mower on (but not a roller, they won't have one, but that's another story).
Has anyone else seen these? Are there any problems that we can expect?
Still looking forward to the new season though.

[John]

Hi Dave,

My Club although has the traditional type ditch etc has the bits of tyre thing as buffers in the ditch with drain holes, this works as well as anything.

have played on greens where over time the paving slabs around the green have slanted away from the Green, with Bowls being round they can travel some distance which I have seen distracts several rinks. One Club tried to put up a wooden beading to stop the woods rolling away on dead ends etc, until a member triped fell and broke an arm!!!

The only good thing is the rain flows away 'with the woods'!!!!

Either designed by committee or non Bowlers!!

Best of LucK

John

[Angel]

I remember a few years ago our Club had some sort of pebbles in the ditch, I can remember one works party I spent what seemed like a life time taking them out and piling them on the surrounds,
I escaped inside to help with the cleaning never did find out why they did this, should have asked, I was frozen solid and so relieved to get back into the Warm Club House

Angel:D

[kiwi bowler]

Sounds like a waste of money to me, in these hard times.

[peter]

Councils are very good at wasting our money, and then putting up the community charge
Lot of talk on the television of our Government claiming expenses costing the taxpayer millions, one embarrassing item claimed for was porn movies watched by someones husband,
Getting of the subject if they would ask a Club what they need instead of wasting money doing things which are wrong, a lot of the time they have to go back and do the jobs again

[Sam]

Hi Dave

Would be a nightmare if your woods kept rolling down unto the other rinks, we have one green which we play on and there is nowhere to put dead woods,
the green finishes with the ditch and then a wall, they have got round this by putting up a wooded box sort of thing in which to place the mat, this is fixed half way up the wall,
I am going to look next time I play there and see if the box is big enough for woods I have a feeling it isn't, will get a picture of it,
Have started our season this weekend so its all go have had a roll up this morning already, going to go and sort out the fixture book and get the games into the dairy, before I get myself into a muddle :roll:

[Dave Smith]

Hi Sam,
Thanks for that. This is one of the problems that we have - please let me know how you get on.
The main problem is with people, many not in the first flush of youth, stepping off the rink onto a grassy slope.
Another problem, not ours admittedly, is marking the rinks out. The park keepers used to have different coloured lines painted on the wooden end boards. It worked even though the wood was rotting. We now have concrete covered in plastic matting, which you can't paint. Don't know what they are going to do. Can you help?
Then there is the grassy slope leading up to the green. If I were an 11 year old with a bike it would look really tempting ...