Parish Council grass cutting update. Butts Road and Sir Henry Calley Memorial Garden.

The Council wanted to update parishioners with regards to the grass cutting at the above locations.

In 2023 the council did a tender review for the grass cutting.  As a result of this a new contractor was selected for 2024 and future years.

The new contractor started in March/April 2024 and due to them being unfamiliar with the area, the Parish Council started feeding back on area’s missed/not cut to the required specification.

It became clear in May that the feedback was not resulting in the work being carried out to the requirements the Parish Council expected.

A full list was provided to the contractor, along with a reminder of the original specification for the work to be carried out.

As a result of this, the contractor terminated the contract with the Parish Council in late May with immediate effect.

From this, the Parish Council looked at the other contract tenders provided in 2023 to see if they were still valid and also provided the tender specification for other contractors who enquired about the work.

We also asked a contractor to provide a one off quote to start remedial work on the 2 cemeteries as an emergency.

The Full Council meeting to vote on a new contractor is tonight Monday 10^th June and an emergency Finance meeting to vote on the remedial work quote for the cemeteries has been called for tonight Monday 10^th June as well.

On Tuesday 11^th June we will be in a position to hopefully formally appoint the contractor to do the work moving forward and also arrange for the cemetery grass cutting.

We have provisionally booked in the cemetery work for Wed 12^th June for 3 days.

PLEASE NOTE – strimmers will have to be used in some areas which do not provide the same quality of cut as lawn mowers. Blowers will be used to blow clippings off graves BUT it may be a case that the area looks worse before it gets better. Once the grass is short the subsequent cuts will improve the condition and also mulch the longer clippings down so they return to the soil.

With regards to the parish grass cutting, again, longer areas may look a little worse before they get better.