Awful experience
We’re a charitable, voluntary village sports association and asked Shawfield to mark 4 Pickleball courts on a tarmac tennis/netball court area. I could write an essay on this but in brief the quote was slow but cheaper than others and they could do it quite quickly (I should have rejected it then). They failed to show up on the first day scheduled (someone rang in sick). We agreed 10am a few days later, I rang at 10.20am and was told they were on their way. They arrived at 12.50pm. When eventually they started the lines were much wider than the lines already on the court and within about 3 metres the machine failed, spluttered and left a blotch, this was repeated for about 20 metres until we told them to stop. The guy told us they buy paint from a rival and sometimes they put woodchip/shavings in it!
They tried to remove the excess paint unsuccessfully and left. They offered to come back and put it right with new paint but when I asked basic questions like how would we know it would work and how do we make the lines thinner, there was no explanation. They accused us of over reacting and said they would paint black over the excess paint but the tarmac is actually all painted green. All confidence lost and a very upset group of volunteers and Pickleball club, we told them not to come back. Meanwhile we are left with a mess.
Reply from Shawfield Line Marking Specialists Limited
Hi Chris.
Thank you for taking the time to leave your feedback — we’re genuinely sorry to hear about your experience and the frustration caused.
On the day of the works, we unfortunately experienced an unexpected fault with our spray equipment. While this is extremely uncommon, we fully accept that the outcome on site fell below both your expectations and our own standards.
We did offer to return promptly with alternative equipment and materials to rectify the work and achieve the correct finish. However, we understand that confidence had understandably been affected at that stage and that you chose not to proceed further.
We also want to reassure you that:
• We only use industry-approved premium materials from established suppliers.
• All works are carried out by trained operatives in line with NHSS 7 standards.
• Equipment is routinely checked prior to attending site.
We have been successfully trading for over 30 years and situations like this are rare for us, but when they do occur, our priority is always to put things right.
We remain willing to return and fully rectify the work at no cost to yourselves.
Please feel free to contact us at at any time so we can discuss this further.
Kind regards,
Shawfield Line Marking Specialists Ltd
