Grounds maintenance

We organise: grass cutting; border, shrub and hedge maintenance; the collection of litter; and leaf clearance. This includes more than 650,000 square metres of grass.

We maintain nearly 72,000 square metres of shrub beds and look after over 20,000 metres of hedging, pruned either once or twice a year, depending on the type of hedge. We clear the leaves from nearly 150,000 square metres of pathways and open areas. We're responsible for areas of land consisting of open space, verges and small play areas. These green areas have a high population of trees: approximately 7,800.

The sort of grounds maintenance we provide will vary according to the seasons (for example, grass cutting in the spring and summer). But this is the level of service we aim to provide:

Pathways: We’ll clear litter, but small amounts or gravel, sand and silt will be present. At our Sheltered schemes we’ll clear leaves on pathways and access areas as part of our winter cleaning schedule.

Weeds: Weeds are treated as part of our regular grounds maintenance work. This can’t happen in very wet weather as the weed-killer gets washed away.

Play and seating areas: They area will be predominantly clean, with no major damage to equipment. There may be minor littering, graffiti and moss.

Green areas

Grass areas: Grass will be between 25mm and 100mm long. There may be a small amount of litter.

We don’t collect grass cuttings to keep costs down for customers. Colleacting grass adds around 60% to the cost per square metre, so doing so would mean a big rise in service charges.

Rough ground: Grass will be cut every 9-10 weeks. We’re not able to cut this grass if there’s dog mess or broken glass on the grass, if vehicles are parked on it, or during or after heavy rain.

Hedges: Hedges might show up to six months of growth. We don’t cut hedges between March and August (unless they are obstructing a footpath) to help protect birds who may be nesting there.

Shrubs: Mostly clear of weeds and litter. Not obstructing the footpath.

All play equipment is inspected every month to make sure that it’s safe.

Trees

Around roads and footpaths: There may be some low branches and some growth at the bottom of the tree, but it won’t be in the way of the road or footpath.

Around buildings: Branches might be within 3m of the building, but will be at least 0.5m away.

Around information signs: There might be some trees around the sign, but the sign will still be clearly visible.

Around street lights: Trees won’t get in the way of street lights.

Find out more about how we look after our trees on this web page.

Need advice about trees or shrubs? Click here for more information.