Home Fixtures Back On For Ponthir
Work has been completed on a scheme to help a local sports club develop their football and cricket pitches.
The original start date for the project at Ponthir Sports and Community Club was cancelled due to Storm Eunice, meaning contractors South Wales Sports Ground were unable to carry out excavations, and impacting the club meaning they had to play their first month of games away from home.
Despite the setback, all works were completed with positive results. Team manager David Fortune, who oversaw the project, explained: “The club want to develop their football and cricket pitches and install a new Multi Use Games Area. For this to go ahead, the 11kV overhead line needed to be dismantled and a new 11kV underground cable had to be re-routed around their boundary.
“For the new underground cable to be installed, we had to obtain an owners and occupier wayleave agreement with Ponthir Sports Club. The reason for the overhead line to be dismantled was that the line runs between the cricket and football pitches and they wanted to change the levels of both pitches, as they were sloping. So, re-routing the cables along the boundary was the best scenario. All excavations were carried out by their own contractors, South Wales Sports Ground, so we had to liaise with them because works got pushed back due to the Storms in Feb.
“As well as the benefit of the overhead line no longer running between the football and cricket pitches, we are waiting on a wayleave from Torfaen council to install two new underground transformers with a larger capacity, which will benefit customers in the area.”
Ponthir Club Grounds Director Mike Holcombe said: Key to us being able to upgrade our pitches was the removal of the power lines, which cross the whole sportsground and prevent many sports being played there. Raising the club’s contribution of £37,000 towards the costs of the works has not been easy, but the good news is that the work is now complete and we’d like thank WPD for its swift response and also their understanding of the sporting challenges we face.”
David payed tribute to WPD technician Dai Jones, planner Jamie Hall and wayleave officer Natasha Lloyd for their hard work in completing the works. He also commended the jointers and line teams who worked very hard on the days leading up to the shutdown and on the shutdown day and South Wales Sports Ground for all excavation work carried out on behalf of Ponthir Sports and Community club.