Relieving compaction from revellers at the Isle of Wight Festival
June 17, 2010
With up to sixty thousand people walking all over the venue of the Isle of Wight festival show ground, it is no wonder that careful attention must be paid to the grass root-zone to protect against the ravages of compaction.
Following a report and recommendations by the STRI’s Alison King, grounds maintenance and development officer for the Isle of Wight Council, Nigel Leppard - who oversees Medina High School where part of the festival is held - called us in in March to treat 26,000 sq metres of severely compacted sports field, prior to fertilising and over-seeding.
Speaking of the venue, Nigel Leppard commented, “These school playing fields are known as ’The Strawberry Fields’ during the festival weekend,” he continued, “The first Isle of Wight festivals were held between 1968 and 1970 on other parts of the island, the 1970 event rivalling Woodstock for size.
"After a break and a relaxing of the Isle of Wight Act the festival returned in 2002 to the current site in Newport and since then has returned year on year. It’s not just all those feet which take their toll but the festival infrastructure, the articulated lorries, telehandlers, huge Big Top marquee and the siting of lighting and sound equipment that does the damage.”
Steve Gingell, STRI Southern Area Manager who has been working with Alison says that deep compressed air injection treatment was one of a range of aeration processes that was recommended as a solution to the problem. “We dug a test pit and found deep compaction pans that needed to be broken through,” he explains.
We moved in with our Airforce and Airforce Scamper terralift machines, in extremely wet conditions, inserting the probe one metre below the surface and injecting compressed air to break up the sub soil, finishing off with an injection of dried, milled seaweed on the final air blast - the seaweed will keep open the channels we created.
The compaction was so severe that we had to use the JCB hammer continuously; we even wore out the tip of the steel probe and had to get a replacement half way through the job.
The seaweed plays and important role by creating a permeable gateway for water to drain away should it rain during the festival.
I was there making a mess of the grass.... I did wonder who they got in to sort the compaction after the 50,000 people visiting the event. Must admit, we were in a nice campervan from www.campinaVDub.co.uk rather than camping. It was a little bit messy on the Friday morning after quite a few mm of rain the night before. Good work.
Posted by: Mike Seaton | June 22, 2010 at 10:58 AM