BEN Welsh is a former greenkeeper who now runs a ground maintenance business.
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He has grave concerns about the standard of sporting fields in the area formerly controlled by Greater Taree City Council, particularly the Taree Recreation Ground, Wingham Sporting Complex and the fields at Old Bar.
"The grounds aren't up to standard,'' he said.
Mr Welsh is heavily involved with the administration of sport in this area. He's the Wingham Junior Rugby League Club president, he serves on the board of the Wingham sporting advancement group and he is also on the Group Three Junior Rugby League management committee. His children play sport in Taree and Wingham while Mr Welsh is a former first grade player and coach with the Wingham Tigers.
"Some of them aren't much better than cow paddocks. There's cut grass left on then; the fields aren't cut often enough; there's bare patches and lot of holes.
"They're borderline unsafe.''
Mr Welsh said the fields have deteriorated since the council amalgamation and he called on council to be more transparent with user groups regarding the upkeep of fields.
"Aesthetically, it's not a good look for the area,'' he said.
"We had a junior touch football gala day at Taree last Sunday at the rec ground.''
While he said the playing fields had been mowed, the surrounds hadn't.
"We had people walking through wet, long grass to get to the games. That's not good.''
He claims that council seems to 'chop and change' it's program when it comes to mowing and maintaining sporting fields. He added that there seems to be a lack of communication between council and sporting groups.
"We need to get more cuts onto the fields,'' he said.
"We're going through the best growing season we've had for 20 years. The minimum mow for a sports field should be weekly, but that doesn't appear to be the case at the moment.
Mr Welsh understands council will be closing fields at Taree and Wingham for a month in March for maintenance. He said this will do little to rectify the problems.
"All they're going to do is throw around some rye grass,'' he said.
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"And that's at a time when summer sports are coming to a close and teams are preparing for winter sports.
"Basically they're shutting the fields down for a month when they haven't done any real maintenance on them previously. They've just let the fields slide and slide.
"The fields should be cut down and cleaned up to encourage them to knit up. Then we get a result so the fields hang in through the winter.''
Mr Welsh said council saw first hand how much the fields deteriorated during the drought.
"We had to shift the Northern Eagles junior touch championships from Taree to Tuncurry and a junior league gala day from Taree to Port Macquarie because of the condition of the fields here,'' he said.
"They don't appear to have issues at Forster with the sport fields that we do. The facilities seem to be in place at Forster to maintain the fields to an acceptable standard, even during a drought.''
Mr Welsh added that council seems to lack consistency with ground maintenance.
"We purchased a mower worth about $25,000 through the user pay system at Wingham. We were going to get a volunteer to tidy up the fields on a Monday and then hopefully council would stick to their regular program on a Thursday,'' he said.
"But we'd go out and mow the fields and then council wouldn't follow through with their end of the bargain.''
He added that about five years ago a council worker regularly mowed fields at Wingham.
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"The place was spotless and the fields were in good nick. They were mowed to a height that was acceptable for touch, for football codes and for cricket.''
However, that's now not the case and Mr Welsh said the fields have suffered as a result.
"I don't know if there have been budget cuts, but council needs to find a solution for these problems,'' he stressed.
Mr Welsh said this isn't an exercise in 'council bashing.'
"But it's a concern for this area,'' he stressed.
"We deserve better.''
(Council has been approached for comment).
