OFFICIALS at Bradford on Avon Bowls Club will now be able to use a new borehole to water their green.

The £15,000 borehole has been installed by Bradford on Avon Town Council following approval in March. It involved works around the bowls club perimeter to install pipework, tanks and the borehole itself.

Cllr Sarah Gibson, the mayor of Bradford on Avon, opened the new facility on Friday.

She said: "I’m terribly excited to see another example of Bradford on Avon’s innovation and leading the way on environmental projects.

"This has an impact on lowering the town’s sports facilities carbon footprint with the added advantage of being a cost saver.”

The council provided £5,000 towards the cost, with the rest coming from Bradford on Avon Area Board, Community First, Bradford on Avon Cricket Club, Cumberwell Park Golf Club and Bradford on Avon Bowls Club.

The borehole, a narrow vertical shaft drilled into the ground for the extraction of water, will provide clean but untreated water with a cost saving of £2,000 a year.

It will be used to water both the bowling green and nearby cricket pitches whilst reducing dependence on mains water and bolstering the organic maintenance programme at the bowls club.

Derrick Hunt, Honorary Secretary of Bradford on Avon Bowls Club, who originally presented the project to the town council for consideration, said: “The borehole project is a continuation of our environmental practices, which have also included hedge planting and organic green maintenance.

"It will enable us and the neighbouring Cricket Club, to keep our facilities to the standard our members and visitors have come to expect, whilst also reducing our impact on the environment and reducing bills for generations to come.

"I’d like to thank all of the contributors for helping us to make this project a reality.”

In addition to its ecological and economic benefits, the project will also provide security of supply during any summer droughts, particularly a concern as global warming increases.

The existing mains water supply to Bradford on Avon Cricket Club is low pressure and it takes around four hours to carry out the watering, which needs to be supervised.

It is estimated it will take less than an hour in future which will give Cricket Club chairman, Mike Smith and his team much more time to focus on other tasks.

The water supply from the borehole will also be made available to Bradford on Avon Town Council for any potential future uses to replace the use of treated mains water.

It forms part of the council's continued investment in projects relating to the climate and ecological emergencies.