Formby Ladies Golf Club

Formby Ladies Golf Club installed an innovative horizontal well onsite in order to sustainably abstract more water from the local groundwater source.

Map

Formby Ladies Golf Club has traditionally relied upon a natural groundwater fed pond for irrigation water. The abstraction licence for this pond is 90m³ a day (or 6000m³) a year. Peak irrigation for the course with a full irrigation cycle (greens, tees and approaches) is 100m³ a day and so the club had to carefully manage output during droughts. In addition, as the pond was reliant on the underlying water table to feed it, levels could significantly drop during dry spells, preventing abstraction. The club also only had a small holding tank capable of holding around 45m³, which provide less than half a day's full requirement. This set up was tested to its limit in 2018, with irrigation restricted to hand watering greens only by the end of the drought. This spurred the club to investigate alternatives in the winter of 2018, and they eventually settled on the horizontal well concept. A number of horizontal wells have been installed in the area over the last ten years by Popes of Hightown and designed by Rick Brassington. These have been extremely successful in providing a consistent and sustainable source of water for golf courses in the local area.

The basic principle for such systems involves installing standard perforated pipe below the water table in order to harvest water. In this area, the water table is extremely high at around 5-10m, thus allowing this type of system. However, the installation of drainage pipe at this depth still requires specialist machinery, only one of which currently exists in the UK. Fortunately, this is located just down the road with Popes of Hightown. The design for Formby involves two 160m long pipe runs of 150mm perforated pipe at 6m depth which connect into a central collection chamber. Water passively drains into these pipe runs and then into the central collection chamber. A pump is located within this chamber and transfers water into a new 180m³ holding tank. A separate abstraction licence and exploratory borehole data were required. However, these types of systems seem to be viewed more favourably by the Environment Agency as they do not interfere with deeper aquifers, which are utilised by agriculture or for domestic use. The club has a licence for 24,000m³ a year or 225m³ a day, with the system capable of pumping between 12-60m³ an hour if needed, which more than covers the club's current requirements. They also retained their old pond abstraction licence as a contingency supply in case anything should happened to the well. Although this type of system may not be appropriate for most clubs, it is an extremely successful option for coastal clubs located in areas with a high-water table.

Key Figures

Current irrigation requirement: 6000-7000m³ a year
Old abstraction license: 6000m³ a year
New abstraction license: 24,000m³
Horizontal borehole capacity: 12-60m³ an hour

If you would like more information or advice on these water security projects implemented at Formby Ladies Golf Club, contact details are found below: Head Greenkeeper Rob Sandilands:- Email: greens@formbyladiesgolfclub.co.uk Twitter: @RobSandilands