Arena care
An arena seen four times a year is an arena nobody is really looking after.
The trade standard is a quarterly visit that often is not booked in advance. Arenas end up seen four or five months apart, and by then the damage is already being done.
Plans from£79per month, plus VAT, by direct debit. Six, nine or twelve visits a year.
Start the planMost arenas are seen four or five months apart
The industry standard is a quarterly visit. In practice that is rarely booked in advance, so a visit slips, then the next one slips, and an arena that was supposed to be seen four times a year gets seen twice.
By the time somebody does arrive, the surface has thinned on the track and built in the corners, the edges have gone, and there is a blocked outfall nobody noticed in October. None of that was expensive to prevent. All of it is expensive to fix.
The programme
Plan
Basic
£79
per month, plus VAT, by direct debit
6 visits a year
Every other month, in the diary for the year. Enough that the surface never gets away from you and somebody looks at the drainage before it blocks.
Every visit
- Six scheduled visits a year, booked in advance
- Professional levelling, harrow set for your material and depth
- Depth checked against your specification, measured rather than eyed
- Drainage outfall cleared and checked
- A note of what we found and what it will need next
Most arenas want this
Standard
£99
per month, plus VAT, by direct debit
9 visits a year
Roughly every six weeks, weighted to the seasons that actually punish a surface. The right plan for an arena in regular work.
Every visit
- Nine scheduled visits a year, weighted to autumn and winter
- Everything in Basic
- Edges pulled back in before the middle goes thin
- Written condition report after every visit
- Priority call-out between visits
Plan
Ultimate
£129
per month, plus VAT, by direct debit
12 visits a year
Monthly. For competition yards, for arenas ridden hard through the winter, and for anybody who would simply rather never think about it.
Every visit
- Twelve scheduled visits, one a month
- Everything in Standard
- Top up material included, matched to your build record
- Annual deep service: full depth survey and drainage jetting
- Surface performance reviewed with you after the winter
The usual way, and this way
Nothing here is a criticism of any particular firm. It is simply how arena maintenance is normally sold, and why it so often does not work.
| The usual way | The Arena Care Plan | |
|---|---|---|
| How often it is seen | Quarterly in theory. Four to five months apart in practice. | Frequently, all year, on dates that are already in the diary. |
| Who books it | You do, when you remember, or when something is already wrong. | We do, in advance, for the whole year. |
| What gets checked | The surface, because that is what you can see. | Surface, depth against specification, edges, and the drainage that actually fails. |
| Top up material | Whatever is on the lorry, which may not match what is already down. | Matched to your build record, so the two materials integrate. |
| What you get afterwards | An invoice. | A written condition report, and a note of what it will need next. |
| When something changes | You wait for the next scheduled visit, whenever that turns out to be. | Priority call-out between visits. |
What it is really buying
A well maintained sand arena rides better than a neglected waxed one. Maintenance is the cheapest performance you can buy and it is the thing most owners quietly stop doing after the first year.
A blocked outfall is ten minutes if somebody looks in October. It is a drainage excavation if nobody looks until March.
Questions
- Do I have to have had my arena built by you?
- No. A good share of our maintenance work is on arenas somebody else built. We would survey it first, because it is worth knowing whether you have a maintenance problem or a construction problem before paying for the wrong one.
- What if my arena needs more than maintenance?
- We will tell you. There is a point where a surface is genuinely finished and no amount of harrowing brings it back, and there is a point where the problem is the drainage and a new surface would be money set on fire. Both of those are conversations, not plan visits.
- Can I cancel?
- It is a monthly plan by direct debit, not a fixed term contract. If it is not earning its place, stop it.
- Is £79 not a lot for harrowing?
- It would be, if that were what it was. Levelling is the visible part. What you are actually paying for is that somebody who knows arenas looks at yours regularly, checks the drainage before it blocks rather than after, and catches the thinning track while it still costs a few tonnes of matched material rather than a resurface.