Sherborne St John Football Club, based in Basingstoke, has an excellent reputation for strong youth football development, boasting a dozen teams affiliated to the Hampshire FA. Despite the good reputation of its home ground – at Chute Recreation Ground – as being a good playing surface, it has been suffering in recent seasons with persistent waterlogging that has undermined not only individual fixtures, but also the broader operations and reputation of the club.

With substantial drainage improvements being designed to last around 30 years, a crucial ambition of the waterlogging mitigation project was to maximise the cost-effectiveness of the drainage installation, so that the hard work of the club’s volunteers in organising it would continue to pay off for future generations of the club’s players.