D-Day for UCC Farm

opus · 08-04-2019 10:06am #1

Sad day coming up for runners in Cork thanks to UCC fencing off one of the most used training spots in town.

FARMEXIT - May 7th 2019

TheBigGreen · 08-04-2019 10:12am

I've only ran there once, it was a lovely sunny evening and felt very relaxed. Must go again before it closes.

Leevale will be lost with out it!

rom · 08-04-2019 10:22am

opus wrote: »

Sad day coming up for runners in Cork thanks to UCC fencing off one of the most used training spots in town.

FARMEXIT - May 7th 2019

Pure ****

Sunriserun · 08-04-2019 6:09pm

Does anyone know of any other options to run on grass in Cork City?

Treviso · 08-04-2019 10:26pm

Hopefully, an opening in the fencing will magical appear - similar to Tramore Valley Park

Cape Clear · 11-04-2019 12:54pm

Sunriserun wrote: »

Does anyone know of any other options to run on grass in Cork City?

Ballincollig Park probably the nearest to Curaheen but wouldn't consider it City tbh.

deisedude · 11-04-2019 12:56pm

UCC mustn't care about athletics. Lane 1 on the mardyke track is unusable and rather than fixing it they have just put cones in the first lane. Its been like that with months now

TheBigGreen · 11-04-2019 2:41pm

deisedude wrote: »

UCC mustn't care about athletics. Lane 1 on the mardyke track is unusable and rather than fixing it they have just put cones in the first lane. Its been like that with months now

Yeah it's very annoying!!

Fusitive · 11-04-2019 6:10pm

deisedude wrote: »

UCC mustn't care about athletics. Lane 1 on the mardyke track is unusable and rather than fixing it they have just put cones in the first lane. Its been like that with months now

Tracks cost big money. They invested €10 million into the Mardyke at the start of the decade after the flood damage so to say that UCC don't care about athletics is purely false.

I've never worked with mondo track surfaces but have a good deal of experience with natural sport surfaces and astroturf and a few questions you have to ask yourself is:

1)How much will it cost and what kind of refurb is needed?

Track resurfacing can cost anywhere from 10's to 100's of thousands depending on the refurb needed. Even if a track isn't badly damaged down into the sub base, sub bases need to be reconstructed every so often as they degrade, that makes the job much more expensive. I know a track close to where I am that had just a top layer mondo resurface lately and that cost €140k. Need a whole refurb might cost 2-3 times that.

Where does the money come from?

The government. Most Universities or state funded entities are on very tight budgets and live on a essential problems getting solved first. A wore down lane on a track might be the end of the world for an athlete running there but it is a lot further down the priority line for University or Government attention. UL was in a lot worse state than UCC and for a lot longer before a sports grant was passed to resurface and redevelop and that is a campus which is much more sport driven in general. Applications and approvals for funding take a long time and even if the University is pushing for it, that doesn't mean they will get it as they are competing against other departments within the college, outside colleges in different locations and other sporting organisations for funding.

What you end up getting is people getting angry because something is very important priority to them without understanding the cost, process and competition that's happening on another level.

deisedude · 12-04-2019 9:32am

Fusitive wrote: »

Tracks cost big money. They invested €10 million into the Mardyke at the start of the decade after the flood damage so to say that UCC don't care about athletics is purely false.

I've never worked with mondo track surfaces but have a good deal of experience with natural sport surfaces and astroturf and a few questions you have to ask yourself is:

1)How much will it cost and what kind of refurb is needed?

Track resurfacing can cost anywhere from 10's to 100's of thousands depending on the refurb needed. Even if a track isn't badly damaged down into the sub base, sub bases need to be reconstructed every so often as they degrade, that makes the job much more expensive. I know a track close to where I am that had just a top layer mondo resurface lately and that cost €140k. Need a whole refurb might cost 2-3 times that.

Where does the money come from?

The government. Most Universities or state funded entities are on very tight budgets and live on a essential problems getting solved first. A wore down lane on a track might be the end of the world for an athlete running there but it is a lot further down the priority line for University or Government attention. UL was in a lot worse state than UCC and for a lot longer before a sports grant was passed to resurface and redevelop and that is a campus which is much more sport driven in general. Applications and approvals for funding take a long time and even if the University is pushing for it, that doesn't mean they will get it as they are competing against other departments within the college, outside colleges in different locations and other sporting organisations for funding.

What you end up getting is people getting angry because something is very important priority to them without understanding the cost, process and competition that's happening on another level.

Fair enough, I underestimated the cost required to fix the problem. They should probably communicate that with the clubs paying to use the facilities though rather than sticking out a few cones and saying the lane is out of use indefinitely

D-Day for UCC Farm

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