Work to begin on improving Star Meadow, home of Soccer Elite FA and Southern Counties East Football League side Hollands & Blair

The work to install a new artificial pitch at the home of Hollands & Blair is due to start next week after a lengthy delay.

The Star Meadow Ground in Gillingham is controlled and operated by the Invictus Sports Group (ISG) and work on the project was delayed, they say, due to “some frustrating final issues put forward by Medway Council.”

Blair, who play in the Southern Counties East Premier Division, have been playing their home games at league rivals Lordswood this season. Works had originally been pencilled in to begin in late April.

Blair chairman Paul Piggott said: “This is a huge step for our club which excites us all, and gives us a fantastic platform to continue the great work by Laurence Plummer (the club’s honorary president, who died in 2020). Our aim is to push on and create something special in the Gillingham area for the community.”

Ground owners ISG are made up of Star Meadow owner Wayne Peirce, along with the owners of the Soccer Elite FA academy, Rich Radbourne and Lee Spiller.

The grass pitch will be replaced with a FIFA-graded artificial surface while two new classrooms for the SEFA College Education Programme will be added along with office space, a boardroom, a new changing room layout, new dugouts and expanded car parking. Work is scheduled to begin next Monday (October 10).

Mr Radbourne said: “Invictus Sports Group have worked exhaustively on this project over the last eighteen months, and after tying up some frustrating final issues put forward by Medway Council, which has delayed us by three months, we are now in a position to begin construction and push the Star Meadow site to its full potential and deliver this project for the community.

“It’s been a long road - myself, Wayne and Lee are