Litamina Cleans Up for Improved Pitch Quality

Litamina Cleans Up for Improved Pitch Quality

St Peter’s School in York is a co-educational independent school for 13 -18 year olds which prides itself on its excellent sports facilities. These comprise a new multi surface pitch, two sports centres, gymnasium, indoor swimming pool, extensive playing fields, boathouse, netball and tennis courts. 

The sports on offer include rugby football, hockey, netball, tennis and cricket and set in 47 acres, the school’s sports fields represent a considerable workload for Head Groundsman Stefan Jones and his team. There are eight rugby pitches and two cricket outfields.

“When I took on my role at the school in 2011, much of the machinery was outdated so the decision was taken to invest in new equipment which would improve standards of presentation and help us to work more efficiently,” Stefan explains.

Discussions with Dennis and Sisis demonstrated the high build quality of the company’s equipment and improved cut; this resulted in the purchase of a Razor mower. “We were looking for strongly built machinery and the high standard of the Razor is a very good example, convincing us to purchase more equipment from Dennis and Sisis,” Stefan comments.

Top of the list was a collector, fitted with a brush to improve the quality of the winter pitches.

“The Sisis Litamina has proved ideal,” comments Stefan. “We use it once a week to pick up clippings because we don’t box off the grass on the outfields and also we use it to lift the sward before mowing. The result is a better, cleaner cut helping to keep the grass short and avoiding the long, straggly and matted sward we had before.”

He points out that the wet weather this summer has led to heavy grass growth, so the Litamina has offered considerable time savings in difficult conditions.

Collecting leaves and debris around the grounds and other tidying jobs are all part of the workload for the Litamina and Stefan says: “It will pick up most things but because we have the brush set high to pull the grass up, it does not get worn.”

With a generous working width of 1.5m to cover the extensive grass areas, the Litamina is easily handled by a 27hp tractor. “It is a really effective machine that we are very pleased with,” comments Stefan. “We would expect it to last many years because its design is so simple and that’s another big plus - it is very straightforward to maintain. We have a very good relationship with Sisis and I am looking to add more of the company’s machines to our fleet.”