Former BIGGA county secretary Phil Baldock joins Rigby Taylor

By Alistair June 9, 2019 07:06 Updated

Phil Baldock has joined Rigby Taylor’s northern team of area technical managers.

He brings a wealth of practical experience to this role having worked in greenkeeping for a number of high-profile clubs including Foxhills Country Club, Hankley Common, Royal Portrush and Ganton.

Phil has won the Shell ‘Best of Better Britain’ Conservation Award for his sand dune conservation and has staged Curtis Cup, Walker Cup and Brabazon Trophy events.

As a keen supporter of BIGGA, he was secretary and chairman of the Surrey section and founder member of BIGGA Northern Ireland section and its first chairman.

Meanwhile, the extraordinary levels of savings in time, resources and therefore money forecast by the investment in Rigby Taylor’s robotic TinyLineMarker (TLM) line marking machine will not only see Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council’s Street Scene team achieve a return on investment measured in months, but the new-found efficiencies will also enable the operation to offer ultra-competitive line marking to sports facilities currently outside of the council’s remit.

With the maintenance of 92 pitches under their care, the Street Scene team – led by Operations Manager Darren Bisby – was formerly taking four man-hours (two men) to initial line mark each pitch (predominantly football) each week with the conventional 3/4/5 triangle method and string, using a total of eight men in four vehicles.

Now, with TLM, one man is able to deliver the borough-wide service for line marking, taking just 20 minutes to mark a pitch – and Darren even suggests that a standard pitch can now be mowed and marked in less than an hour.

So, with 2,392 scheduled overmarkings across the pitches, 797 man-hours will effectively be put back into the Street Scene operation. With teammates released to perform other income-generating duties, the TLM operator can also now get on with other tasks during his visit – such as litter picking, goalpost strimming and divotting – while the robot is in action.

In addition, one vehicle has been removed from the fleet – saving several thousands of pounds on lease costs and around £900 on annual fuel plus any maintenance and repair costs.

Lightweight and easy to transport, TLM utilises the latest GPS technology with RTK receiver and antenna that connects with global satellites and mobile network connections. It takes the input of pitch line dimensions and multiple pitches via an App and re-positions them to best fit the site using Google Maps. Once stored, the lines are never lost, even if they disappear if a pitch is not used for any length of time.