A lack of soil on the new sporting fields has resulted in Shoalhaven Football Association and the Shoalhaven Mariners Baseball Association joining forces to condemn Shoalhaven City Council for mishandling the project.

Leading the charge is football association volunteer groundsman and council’s former sportsground officer Gary Girdlestone, who described the ground as “a return to the bad old days”.

“I am almost lost for words at the total disregard for the basic methods of sports field construction and the total lack of any semblance of a growing media on the grounds,” Mr Girdlestone said.

He said the soil in the area was heavy clay, which was impervious to water. This had been covered with a thin layer of organic material in which sprigs of kikuyu grass had been planted.

Mr Girdlestone said it was well below what was needed for a sporting field of even a reasonable quality.

“For a sporting field you need a minimum of 250 to 300 millimetres of a blend of 80 per cent sand and 20 per cent soil, just so the surface doesn’t become a bog when it rains, and the grass doesn’t die off as soon as it’s dry,” he said.

“Council knows this and has specifications to do the job properly, but this is a long way short of that.”

Mr Girdlestone questioned why organic material, containing wood and bark chips, would be spread over a heavy clay base.

“This organic material will just decompose and there will be nothing left,” he said.

“Whatever purpose this soil has, it wouldn’t meet any specifications for a sportsground.”

SDFA president Ian Cockburn said the situation in South Nowra, which was the most heavily used ground in the Shoalhaven, was vastly different to a new AFL ground at Ulladulla, where users had control of the design and specifications all the way down to the choice of the type of grass.

“We don’t care what kind of grass they give us; we would just like some soil to plant it in,” Mr Cockburn said.

He said council had regularly spoken since 2001 about developing South Nowra as a centre of excellence.

“What they’re doing has nothing to do with excellence, it’s mediocre at best.”

Also set to use the new South Nowra are the Shoalhaven Mariners, and junior coach Michael Taylor joined the criticism of the grounds.

“We need the field to be of a high standard for the competition in which we play,” he said.

“This ground does not appear to be up to that standard.”