Braintree Town chairman Lee Harding feels it will be money well spent having an expert opinion on the state of the Avanti Stadium pitch.

While Harding and the club recognise the main problem leading to the series of postponed home fixtures during the current and past seasons is the layer of clay under the pitch that prevents water draining away, he thinks it will be worthwhile having a fresh assessment.

The club are paying for an expert from the Sports Turf Research Institute to conduct an independent survey – that is due to take place today – that they can then present to the Vanarama National League to highlight the issues.

“We’re investing a bit of money into it,” said Harding.

“We’ve already spent over £20,000 on the pitch this season with the covers that we’ve bought and other work, but we’ve had a few chats with the league and they’ve been asking what our plans for it are and what we’re doing.

“They have recommended this chap, who comes from Scotland and will provide a thorough report that will go both to the league and to the club and we’ll then be able to decide which way forward to go.

“We have had enormous amounts of advice over the years and it’s mostly been that we need to get rid of the clay, but we have what we have and we have got to live with it.

“In an ideal world, the league would like a magic wand to be waved and for there to be no more problem, but clubs all over the country have been having problems.

“However, we will talk to whoever wants to talk to us about it.

“The league do have an ultimate sanction that they could close the ground, but we are not at that point yet.

“We had nine weeks without a home game a couple of years ago.

“We are behind with league games, but it’s not all our fault as the Torquay game at the weekend showed.

“However, the league want to know what is going on and this report will show them that there is clay under there.

“There are certain things we can do, but our feeling is that we don’t want to put improvements in before we have professional advice.

“We feel that is sensible, so we will get the findings of the report and will then work with the league so they know what we are doing.

“I’m an advocate of getting advice from as many people as possible so that if you do something and don’t get it right then it’s not just Braintree Town at fault.

“Rather than just us saying there is clay there, there will be independent advice saying it and it won’t just be us making excuses.”

Harding admits that only having had one home fixture since the end of November has impacted the club’s finances in a similar way to when no games took place at Cressing Road for nine weeks, but he feels things aren’t as bad now as they were then.

“Not playing games has impacted us as a business, but we saw this happening two or three years ago,” added the Iron chairman.

“I don’t feel we’re as badly off as we were then, but ultimately, you need income coming in or you either have to stop spending or find other ways to get income in.

“We are watching it as we can all see games backing up, but fingers crossed there will be no more rain.”