PETERSFIELD Rugby Club face potential "embarrassment" at not fulfilling requirements of sponsors who loaned them money, due to poor standards of pitch maintenance. Pitch assessments were due to have been carried out in the autumn but have not been possible as the club's four pitches were not in use as goal posts were not available. The club are frustrated with the town council, as they claim maintenance procedures laid out in the contract do not match up with the lease. The Penn's Place pitches are rented from the town council at an annual cost of nearly £5,000, and club officials say discrepancies between the two legal documents put the club in an awkward position. At a meeting of Petersfield Town Council's grounds committee last week, rugby club chairman Chris Todd was given the chance to air his frustrations to the council regarding the maintenance of the pitches. The existing maintenance contract covers duties such as mowing grass and marking out pitches, but not fertilisation. Town clerk Neil Hitch said: "The lease terms do provide that the council should provide rugby pitches that are suitable for the purpose of playing rugby." To fulfil that obligation, Mr Todd sought assurances that changes would be made to the maintenance contract in order to bring it in line with terms laid out in the lease. Councillors agreed there was a difference between the work agreed in the lease and that actually being carried out in the contract. They resolved that changes outlined in the rugby club's report be costed and brought back to the October meeting of the grounds committee for further consideration. The club last year had new changing facilities built at a cost of more than £430,000, with help from sponsors including the Rugby Football Union and the Rugby Football Foundation. These loans were dependant on a five-year pitch maintenance plan that Mr Todd said required the club to have a "decent seal of approval" in order to satisfy the demands of their benefactors. Pitch maintenance is the sticking point of the rugby club's frustrations and Mr Todd feels the issue could let the club down as they themselves are not at fault. Mr Todd added: "The maintenance of Penn's Field playing grounds doesn't meet the demands of our lease and the maintenance contract says something else. "We could be in default of our loans which would be extremely embarrassing." The loans were offered to the club on condition that maintenance is acceptable to them. One contention the club had was that rugby pitches should not be cut as short as football pitches. Mr Todd said: "We have prevented the cutting of the pitches so short, but it's not specified in the contract. "It's very easy for the authorities to hide behind contracts." The need for the development of the changing rooms came as the facilities offered by the town council were inadequate. The big money spend on the facilities put Petersfield at the very head of community sports clubs throughout not just East Hampshire but the entire region. The club now boasts six changing rooms, a separate changing room for referees, a large new toilet block, and an extensive physiotherapy room. The club has since offered the town's football and cricket clubs the opportunity to ground share as a way of improving the facilities available to all the clubs. But Mr Todd said: "We cannot make other clubs use our facilities, but the offer is still on the table."