HUNDREDS of social and club players could be left without a training facility this winter as talks begin on how to keep a town’s all-weather astro turf pitches open.

Floodlights on the astros at Liskeard School and Community College have failed, and leisure operator GLL, which manages the site, says it is now not taking bookings for the darker evenings come October, as it would be unsafe to play.

But clubs such as Liskeard and St Cleer Youth Football Club, which has 150 children using the facility each week, say that the news at the end of May has left them “high and dry” as the astros are the only facility of their kind in the Liskeard area.

Twelve affiliated clubs use the site, including Liskeard and St Cleer YFC. Chairman Amy Lloyd says that the football club pays £145 per week to use the pitches with lighting.

This rate is slightly more expensive than the much newer facility at Callywith College, she added.

“We have no other option at the moment. As soon as we were told, we started looking at other all-weather pitches in Callington, Bodmin and Saltash.

“It’s probably too much of an ask of parents and coaches to get to these places in the current climate, but there’s no availability anyway.”

The astro turf pitches at Liskeard were built in 1998 and funded through the Sports Council on a 21-year agreement which expired in 2019.

In the meantime, the school campus transferred from the local authority into the ownership of the SMART Schools Academy Trust in 2016.

A shared-use agreement between GLL, the school, and Cornwall Council was forged whereby the council were responsible for the maintenance of the lighting, GLL for the energy costs, and the school the maintenance of the surface: this agreement lapsed during the pandemic and now the route forward is being discussed, with meetings taking place this week and next.

In a statement to The Cornish Times, GLL said: “During the 2021-22 season, a large number of floodlights failed on the astro turf pitch at Liskeard School and Community College.

“The pitch is owned by the Academy Trust, which has no floodlight requirements. Current fees and charges barely cover the facility’s operational and maintenance costs, let alone the cost of replacing the lights. Safety considerations mean GLL cannot offer any after-dusk bookings for the new season, but daylight slots over the weekend continue to be available.”

In a letter to users of the astros, GLL states that the replacement parts for the lights are not available, and that to upgrade the system would cost around £100,000, a sum that “none of the stakeholders are able to finance”.

While GLL says it has no contractual or legal rights over the pitches, the income from the hire of the facility has been shared between the Trust and the leisure operator – it is not known in what proportion.

The SMART Schools Trust said that the income had been split according to a funding formula within the shared use agreement.

“With regards to the school income share,” said a spokesperson, “all of this has been spent annually on the ongoing upkeep inclusive of staffing, waste disposal, insurance, cleaning and general maintenance and repair of the surface.”

Amy Lloyd, of Liskeard and St Cleer YFC, wants to know where the many thousands of pounds in income from the facility have gone over the years.

“You’re talking 20 plus years. Yes, it takes money to run, but the investment in it has been poor. The dividers went years ago, the goal nets are hanging off the goals. It should have always been maintained as a community asset.”

The main users of the astros are Caradon Hockey Club, who train there twice a week year-round and use the pitches at weekends for matches, spending £19.5k annually on hire fees.

Caradon chairman Toby Riddle told The Cornish Times he was feeling positive that a solution could be found.

“From what I have heard, the school are keen to sort this by September,” he said.

“The money GLL is quoting to repair the lights, I’m not sure where they plucked it from. We’ve had someone come and tell us they could replace the bulbs in an afternoon for much less.”

But Toby says that the club feels nervous about how GLL has described the astro pitch as “coming to the end of its life” – as he feels this could indicate a desire to wind things down. Toby added that the surface of the pitch still has a good few years of use left in it. He is worried, longer-term, about the prospect of major grant funding for the facility being sought from the Football Association, meaning that a 3G surface would be the replacement of choice, and making the hockey club, which has used the astros since the beginning, effectively homeless.

In the immediate future though, the focus is on the floodlights.

Liskeard Cornwall Councillor Nick Craker said: “I am determined to see all parties involved who rely on this astro pitch come together, to come up with a solution.

“I am concerned about the huge impact the loss of this facility would have on the adults and children who use it, there are very few astro pitches like this in our area.

“This is not just a Liskeard issue, we know that hockey and football clubs from all over East Cornwall depend on it.

“It’s likely that some fundraising may be required to repair or replace the floodlights. With a bit of good will on all sides, I am hopeful this can be resolved.”

 A spokesperson for the SMART Schools Trust said: “All parties involved are keen to come together to try to find a solution to this issue.

“We appreciate that there is a lot of historic information that could cause misunderstanding about roles and responsibilities and we will be addressing these areas collectively in the weeks to come.

“The aspiration by all stakeholders is to maintain provision as per the status quo – further detailed and urgent work is ongoing to see how this can be achieved within a compressed timeframe.”