Kestrel Contractors Review

Kestrel Contractors are a UK-based sports pitch company that provides both artificial and natural surfacing for various games. This Kestrel Contractors review will break down what they offer, who they are, and whether their customers have been happy with their work.

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Kestrel Contractors Overview

Founded in 1994, Kestrel Contractors have been heavily invested in the sports surfacing and turfing industry for a long time. With no particular sport that they favour, the company provides a range of products and services for constructing different pitches and sports grounds.

Kestrel Contractors operates out of Hampshire and has used in-house labour to get the best possible approvals, construction results and planning designs prepared for each project. They also own almost all of the equipment they use, from bulldozers to planning and study equipment.

Their work has led Kestrel Contractors to form partnerships (and gain accreditations from) various major groups, including SAPCA and the ISO 9001 accreditation. Their growth continues to open up new options and services for them to offer to their clients and customers over 20 years later.

Services Offered by Kestrel Contractors

The company’s main focus is on the planning and installation of various types of sports surfacing, from pitches to tracks. All of these are specific to different activities, with their own upsides, downsides and quirks. Kestrel Contractors offer the following services:

Artificial Surfaces

All pitches and turfs offered by Kestrel Contractors fall under either artificial or natural categories, and this gives customers a lot more control over the results that they get. Almost all sports and categories get access to both, meaning that you can choose the option best suited to your needs.

The artificial surfaces can range from grass (like a rugby pitch) to the more solid surfaces often seen for tennis courts and other similar locations. All of them are designed to work for that kind of sport or activity, with adjustments and different materials that help players stay comfortable and safe.

For example, rugby is a contact sport with a high amount of tackling and physical impacts between players, as well as falls onto the surface of the pitch. An artificial rugby pitch will offer improved cushioning and impact resistance that can help prevent injuries or pains from an unexpected fall.

The opposite matters for football pitches – having proper foot support and protection can be important since the sport is not contact-based and focuses more on footwork. The more appropriate the surface is, the easier it becomes for players to keep moving properly.

Hockey gets similar improvements, with a design that keeps the surface flat to make hockey sticks a lot easier to use. On top of that, the turfs are meant to help players move fluidly and keep the momentum going, but without being too solid, in case, somebody slips over during play.

For cricket, where movement is not as immediately important, the focus is more on the look and consistency of the turf and how it should not influence the direction of the ball. The same goes for golf and many equestrian sports since hills and valleys in the bad places can make the game unfair.

Natural Surfaces

If a client wants a natural surface, then Kestrel Contractors is able to provide them for almost all sports. These obviously require different tools and skills than an artificial design but are installed just as easily by the company’s experts. Once in place, they are usually ready to use.

While a natural turf can need to be maintained fairly often, compared to an artificial one, they also have their own benefits that vary depending on the sport. Many of the same factors as artificial ones apply, but the designs have to be tweaked in their own way.

For example, on a golf course, slow-growing and low-trimmed grass can be a vital part of keeping the game playable even on putting greens. For tennis courts and pitches for other movement-based sports, it also matters for keeping players on a consistent, predictable surface that does not slant.

Cricket and golf both involve balls being slowly rolled across certain areas of the grass, so that can often mean minor landscaping to make sure that areas are at the correct angle and are not too slanted or rough to play on.

With pitches for team sports like rugby, hockey and football, proper markings are required. Unlike artificial pitches, Kestrel Contractors can design the area in a way that makes the paint or chalk easy to renew and hard to wear away.

All of the natural pitches are designed and planned in the same way as artificial ones, meaning that they get the same level of care and consideration. This includes working out how drainage and landscaping can apply, as well as which extra features and structures (like fences) are important.

Drainage and Irrigation

Kestrel Contractors services include drainage and irrigation, which is vital for keeping an area dry or making sure that it is properly hydrated, respectively. This is not always relevant for sports areas, but proper drainage can be vital during heavy rainstorms or wetter months.

The irrigation comes in handy for very hot areas or dry months where there is not an easy way to stop the playfield from drying out, which can sometimes make playing sports there really hard. It also leads to additional wear and tear, sometimes serious enough to warrant complete turf replacement.

Full, mid-range and budget irrigation options are all available, which can include sprinkler systems to automatically hydrate the area on a regular basis. Drainage is more bespoke and depends on the needs and expectations of the client as well as the reality of the area or location of the turf.

Landscaping and Ancillary Work

A pitch is not always the end of the project, and sometimes an area needs additional landscaping or more work done in the surrounding area. This can mean things like adjusting the locations of certain nearby mounds or ditches, installing fences, or just improving the location surrounding the pitch.

Whatever the work is, Kestrel Contractors services include bespoke work relating to getting new ancillary equipment installed – from fences to lights – as well as landscaping each area based on the client’s needs. All of this is pre-planned with plenty of customer input and contact.

This landscaping can also involve jobs before the pitch or court is set up, like levelling the ground or making sure to spread out an area evenly so that a proper sports field can be built. Usually, this will be rolled into the existing plan if the client already wanted a pitch installed there anyway.

Kestrel Contractors Contact Details

Kestrel Contractors Reviews

Kestrel Contractors have received a lot of positive reviews over the years for their great work, but many of them are sadly lost or do not have any text to go with them. This makes it quite difficult to judge why their customers like them – but the lack of negative reviews is also a very good sign.

Lucy Kinnear, via Google Reviews, said:

“Positive: Quality. Superb equestrian arena. Not a puddle in sight!”

Luke Calver added:

“Very polite and happy to help.”

The majority of others are simple 4 – 5-star reviews with no text and a few outliers that are mostly either spam reviews or ones that do not offer any useful information. With so few reviews in general, this can seem like the company is not that well-known, but their larger clients likely do not leave any.

For individual customers, the fact that there are so few legitimate negative reviews means that the company is not doing anything wrong. They simply are not getting many reviews at all. The low number of reviews is not a sign of poor quality, just of people not leaving reviews.

Since many people only leave reviews if they have a negative experience, then it is quite likely that a lot of positive customers simply forget to leave any reviews on publicly accessible pages or locations online.

Summary

This Kestrel Contractors review was not able to cover everything that the company can offer, so if you want to know more about their services, use the Kestrel Contractors contact details up above. They can answer any burning questions you may have about their work or how they help their clients.

All Kestrel Contractors services are connected to sports surfaces in some way, and that makes them a good place to look for general-purpose surface work, no matter how complex or simple it might be. If you need extra ancillary installations and equipment added, then they can do it quite easily.

On the other hand, if you just want a simple surface with no added extras, that is also an option. They are able to offer as many services as you need without pushing too many onto clients or making everything more complex than it needs to be, which can be a great thing for smaller-scale projects.

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