Sutton Churches Tennis Club

5 Arkwright Road, Reading, Berkshire RG2 0LU
Tel: 0118 931 1111
Fax: 0118 975 0344

Email Amenity Technology
Website: www.amenitytechnology.com

M.D. Carl Crowe: 07970 784 904.

Clients:

£22.50 + VAT per 25kg bag = £26.45 per 25kg (inc. VAT)

25% discount for 1 tonne bags

£1,410 per tonne (inc. VAT)

I rang Carl of Amenity Technology and told him I got his number from Mark at AELTC. He couldn't give me much of an idea how much we would need to completely resurface. He said it all depends on the depth of the court. I would have thought there would be a recommended depth. He said Mark at AELTC is the best in the business and has been installing courts for 20 years. He said we should take Mark up on his kind offer to look at our courts.

68 Torrington Park, London, N12 9PJ.
Tel: 020 8445 1709
Fax: 020 8445 5041
Mobile:07710 796657 
Email Merrick Howse

The shale is imported from Terre Davis in Italy and arrives in Hull. It comes in fine and medium grade plus another grade which may be used as a base layer. Several of our members have played at Ashford Tennis Club who use this supplier and really like it.

Clients:

Cost:

More than 7 times cheaper than Amenity Technology (not including delivery)

Approx. £206 per palette inc. VAT (just over 1 tonne)
Delivery is usually £40/tonne.
1 palette = 35 x 30kg bags = 1050kg

Fine grade is approx. £10 extra per palette.

(In 2001 Ashford ordered 1 tonne for £188.90 + £55 delivery.)

The Deal:

Originally we thought we may be needing to completely replace all the shale on the courts and would therefore be making a very large order. In the end we did not require nearly so much shale but this is the deal we were offered at the time for a large amount. (From letter received 10/10/2003.)

Recommended amount per court: 32 tonnes medium, 2 tonnes fine; Total 136 tonnes. (But our courts are smaller than the standard area so we could use less.) 126 tonnes = 119 tonnes medium, 7 tonnes fine. I was surprised by the small proportion of fine and will query this.

Order 126 tonnes (5 truckloads exactly) for 5 x £5,404.60 inc. VAT & Del = £27,023.
[Normal cost of 126 tonnes inc. delivery = £30,996, so a discount of 12.8%].

Price per tonne = £214.47.

Merrick Howse rang me back on 2/10/2003. He said the material comes from Italian family company Terre Davis www.terredavis.it . It is very like the old Heaseldens material. (Heaseldens went out of business in about 2000 because Environmental Health said they had to make the process less dusty. They didn't think it was worth the extra expense.) He said he got the LTA to assess samples of various shale suppliers and the Terre Davis was considered very good. Apparently proportions of medium and fine grade are a matter of taste. 2/3 medium:1/3 fine is probably average for British courts, the more fine grade you have, the more they will be like continental clay courts. I explained that we had heard the courts take a long time to bed-down. He thinks Terre Davis would dispute this and that we should be able to get all four courts ready for the spring. He suggested that the Terre Davis shale has about 5% clay which allows it to bind more quickly.