Grounds Maintenance And Grass Cutting

General Estates

Continental Landscapes have the contract which includes the following:

General Grass Cutting

This is by far the largest category of grass and includes parks, gardens, housing areas, cemeteries and verges (excluding those classified as high speed roads). The contractor is responsible for:

• Aiming to cut every 9-12 workable days during cutting season (excludes days rained off or where grounds conditions do not permit). Cutting frequency is also reduced during drought periods
• Clearing cuttings from paths
• Clearing litter when on cutting visit
• Repairing minor damage for example vehicle ruts

Find out when the grass near you was last cut by viewing the link to the right of this article.

The contractor is not responsible for:

• Collecting grass cuttings
• Weed control
• Turfing, re-seeding or landscaping verges

General Landscape Planting

The main purpose of this category is to provide planting, which breaks up the hard landscape, softens hard lines and which promotes a green environment.

This category includes the following:

• Planting on informal open spaces
• Verge planting
• Landscaping around residential areas and housing estates
• Road calming planters
• Continental Landscapes horticultural maintenance

The contractor is responsible for:

• Pruning to control overall size, shape and growth habit
• Keeping reasonably weed free
• Pruning away from windows, paths, pavements and clear traffic sight lines
• Returning composted material/chippings to beds
• Replacing planting as directed by Leisure Services
• Removing litter when on a routine maintenance visit

The contractor is not responsible for:

• Watering planting
• Pruning landscaping to create or maintain private views
• Cutting back vegetation which overhangs private property except as a result of normal maintenance works
• Removing leaves, pine needles and fir cones from beds
• Cutting back shrubs which overhang paths and pavements on private property

Leisure Services is responsible for:

• Arranging the replacement and replanting of landscaping
• Provision of new schemes

Hard Edging

Edging of paths, pavements and residential roads takes place each winter (when grass cutting is not required)

The contractor is responsible for:

• Edging grass areas once per annum
• Removing trimmings from site or using to fill depressions in grass areas

Sheltered Housing

Sheltered Housing sites are maintained directly by Leisure Services. They have a team of 3 staff dedicated to work solely on PHP sites. On the 13th May Simon Woodall and team are attending the sheltered housing forum to discuss work schedules and additional requirements for our sites.

We are currently looking to ensure that we fully monitor these services and as well as developing formal service standards we are adopting 'monitoring standards' that Housemark have recently produced. This covers all aspects of estate services.