Tag Archive for: Council

Council cutback challenges

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Council cutback challenges: Council workers are maintaining enough grassland in Argyll and Bute to cover the entire area of Monaco – but sometimes struggling to be available to cut it.

A report has revealed that two million square metres of open grassland space is maintained by the authority’s staff – equivalent to the size of 257 Hampden Park football pitches.

It also says that parts of the area have not had their grass cut to specifications as determined by the council, with competing demands including burials and bin collections.

The budget available for grass cutting has also been reduced by more than 15% since the 2013/14 financial year.

A report on the issue will be discussed at a meeting of the council’s environment, development and infrastructure committee on Thursday.

The document, written by Kirsty Flanagan, the council’s executive director with responsibility for roads and infrastructure, said: “Over the course of last year there were a number of service delivery issues in Cowal, and to a lesser extent across the wider council area, where grassland maintenance had not been carried out to the pre-determined specification.

“This was due in part to a limited level of resilience within the team, an ageing demographic in the workforce, and a number of sickness absences, some of which were medium to long term.

“With the exception of Cowal, the rest of the council area was generally delivered to the specification, although the same limited level of resilience exists across all the council area.

“The current specification has been formed over time, and originated from historic grass cutting schedules that were in place prior to Argyll and Bute being established as a local authority in 1996.

“In recent times those historic schedules have been amended through a succession of budget reductions.”

The report states that all sports fields in the area are scheduled to be cut 21 times a year, with other facilities, such as amenity areas and cemeteries, subject to different specifications by area. These vary from 12 in Bute to 17 for Lorn and Lomond.

She continued: “Reducing the number of cuts any further is not considered to be achievable in terms of delivering meaningful savings.

“Fewer cuts mean the grass is longer when it is cut, so the time to complete the tasks increase and the strain on equipment is greater.

“This would lead to more equipment down-time and greater maintenance and/or replacement costs.

“The current service standards are achievable within the existing budget, staffing and machinery framework. However, resources are so closely matched to those standards that there is limited, if any, resilience to respond to issues which inevitably arise.

“Decisions are having to be made on a regular basis to prioritise what work can be carried out with the available resource.

“It is not unusual for our operational supervisors and managers to be faced with competing demands, including digging graves/burying the dead, collecting bins, making safe potentially dangerous defects and grass cutting.

“Inevitably, but unfortunately, grass cutting often has to be left.

“Last year, in one of the administrative areas, there was an unusual increase in burials over a period which meant that very little grass was cut.

“Although the provision of a grass cutting service is a non-statutory function, the effective maintenance of public open spaces supports the economic development and growth of the area both in terms of attracting tourists as well as new residents.

“Providing and suitably maintaining sporting facilities also supports another strategic priority – allowing people to live active, healthier and independent lives.”

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Chesham Council Bowled Over

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Chesham Council Bowled Over: Throughout the Chesham Town Council district there are a large number of highly manicured grassed areas that need dedicated upkeep. 

Having previously used pedestrian mowers with collector boxes, Paul Isom the Parks and Premises Manager, decided they needed to become more efficient.  After speaking with their local dealer P A Turney and following numerous demonstrations they were bowled over by the ISEKI SXG326.

Chesham Council Bowled Over

“The SXG326 ride on mower collected with the same striped finish as the pedestrian mower with the added benefit of completing it in a fraction of the time.  Its powerful 21hp engine means the mower easily tackles varied terrain whilst completing the jobs quickly with its generous 54” width of cut.  The large 600litre hopper saves us valuable hours by limiting the amount of times you need to stop mowing in order to empty the collector.

Collection of autumn leaves by the SXG326 has been a god send, we are all relieved we no longer have to do all the tiresome work of raking.  We couldn’t believe how well the collector picks these up, especially when it’s been raining and everything is sodden and heavy.

Wildflower meadow areas have increased in parks in recent years which does cut down the cutting cycles required throughout the year but the final cut and collect at the end of each Summer can be hard work.  We however set the SXG326 on the highest height of cut and it mows it all down and collects with no issues, that’s when you realise how effective this piece of kit really is!

Above all this and what really surprised us was how brilliant it was at collecting up all the goose poo around the parks, this is such an unexpected but now invaluable bonus! It makes the parks a much nicer place for the general public to visit whilst also making our lives easier with less cleaning to do,” explained Paul.

As the Parks and Premises Manager at Chesham Town Council, Paul Isom looks after all the parks, opens spaces, woodland plus the theatre, townhall, gym and other public facilities along with his team of 7 staff and Deputy Manager.  As part of the maintenance fleet they also have an outfront flail mower, compact tractor, triple mower for all the non pristine grass verges and tractor with flail for the larger parkland areas.   “Having the ISEKI on the fleet with its multitude of uses assists in allowing us the ability to contract out our services to nearby towns and parishes.

Nothing seems too much trouble for our local dealer P A Turney, Joshua Walker ensures any questions or issues are dealt with the same day where possible.  You cannot ask for more than that.

Having purchased the SXG326 purely to cut and collect the massive amount of parks and manicured verges which are required to be rolled and striped throughout the town, I cannot believe how much more versatile this mower is.  I would not hesitate to recommend this product to another person looking for a reliable mower with an outstanding finish left every time.”

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Council Turns To Charterhouse

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Council Turns To Charterhouse: A Verti-Quake® and Rink Topdresser have become the latest additions to the machinery fleet of Oldham Council.

The redevelopment of a number of sports pitches has seen the purchase of machinery necessary to meet the maintenance specifications. For District Supervisor David Barlow, the latest investment compliments his existing stable of Redexim Charterhouse equipment.

Council Turns To Charterhouse

“We’re very fortunate as a council to be investing not only in our facilities, but in the machinery needed to keep them at their best” explains David, who together with another Supervisor, head up a maintenance team of 40. “Over the last 10 years, 13 pitches mainly used for football, have been redeveloped and converted from soil to sand-based surfaces. This has changed the maintenance programme required to keep the pitches performing to a certain specification, and the machinery we had was struggling to do the job.”

With an Overseeder, Carrier and Verti-Drain® from Charterhouse already in their fleet, David knows it’s kit that can be relied on. “When funds became available, top of my list was equipment to assist with the tasks of slitting and topdressing the pitches, which we should be conducting at least once a year. I spoke with Richard Lucas of Charterhouse and Steve Massey at our local dealer Sharrocks and following impressive demonstrations, and ruling out other machines, we purchased a Rink DS3800 topdresser and Verti-Quake 3825 earlier this year.”

“The Rink gives us a fantastic, even spread across the pitches, making the job much quicker and easier than it was with our previous spreader. It is also fitted with an agitator which prevents material sticking, ensuring a good flow of sand. This machine is already coming into its own as we undertake our football pitch renovations, helping us to fulfil the requirement of applying 50 tonnes of rootzone to each pitch, each year. The Verti-Quake meanwhile will become a key tool to help improve aeration not only of our new sand-based pitches, but across a range of surfaces under our remit.”

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Council Invests In Third Toro Machine

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Council Invests In Third Toro Machine: East Devon District Council has recently invested in a third Toro Groundsmaster 360 after its previous two models purchased in 2015, have proved to be a huge success with the Council’s groundscare department.

Dan Haydon, from the groundscare department, says that there were a lot of boxes for these machines to tick with reliability at the fore and the Groundsmaster 360 has ticked them all.

Council Invests In Third Toro Machine

“We have so many different kinds of grounds to maintain, from communal gardens and children’s play areas to sports pitches and cemeteries,” says Dan. “Having a robust, reliable machine that can adapt is vital and the Groundsmaster 360 does just that.

“Our machines need to be in use every day for eight and a half hours from spring until November; it’s a big task. With the two GM360s we’ve been using for four years, we’ve never had a problem, so it wasn’t a hard decision to purchase another one.”

The Council had been using triple cylinder mowers before purchasing the new GM360 rotary mowers. Due to government cuts, the frequency of cutting areas had to be reduced and its previous mowers weren’t able to keep the grass short for long enough, which is why the department opted to trial the GM360 zero-turn mower

The quad-steer all-wheel drive steering of the GM360 provides maximum productivity even in undulating terrain. Able to climb hills without slipping and make 180 degree turns without tearing turf, Dan couldn’t be happier with the machine.

“Whatever the weather or type of terrain – it performs across the board. We’ve seen a real improvement, and so have our other teams. We currently have eight teams across Devon, three of which have Toro machines, but now everyone is noticing the difference with Toro and there is definite potential in the future for Toro to pushed out across all the teams.”

For more information, visit: reesinkturfcare.co.uk

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Borough Council Choose Imants ShockWave

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Borough Council Choose Imants ShockWave: Ribble Valley Borough Council has invested in their own Imants ShockWave to help alleviate compaction and get games on.

Chris Shepard, Head Gardener at Ribble Council has 14 sports pitches and the fields at Clitheroe Castle, a medieval construction that has been in place for 800-years, to look after as well as other non-sports areas across the Ribble Valley.

Borough Council Choose Imants ShockWave

The council had a desire to improve the drainage on the pitches and prevent fixture cancellations while improving other areas that were less problematic. To achieve this the decision to purchase a ShockWave was made and it has had a busy start to life during its first three months in Lancashire with the difference already visible.

Chris said: “There were some pitches that had some standing water, but it had got to a point where we needed to do something regarding drainage for all of the pitches and the land to put money back into it and improve our facilities and we thought to get better use in the winter periods that the ShockWave was the way to go.

“There has been a difference in some of the pitches we’ve used it on. There was one area that would always hold water but that’s gone now. It’s still a bit softer underfoot than the rest of the field but you’re not squelching water like you would have been.

“Once we go on that area again, we’ll be able to go deeper and get down to 18 inches and that’ll definitely help.”

The ShockWave is specifically designed to revitalise heavy wear areas by relieving soil compaction and in turn improve aeration and remove surface water. When doing the linear aerator causes very little disturbance, to the point that play can continue virtually straight away.

Borough Council Choose Imants ShockWave

For Chris this is an important factor when deciding when to deploy the machine because it can used close to fixture to provide maximum benefit without any risk of causing injury to players.

He said: “People can use the pitches on the same day we’ve used the machine and that’s a massive benefit because we don’t have to shut a pitch down for a week. It allows us to make a solid plan with the machine and work on the pitches when we want to and if an area needs to be worked on close to a fixture then we know that’s fine.”

The ShockWave comes in five different models with the depth ranging from 120mm-380mm. Often it is best to start at a shallower depth to relieve compaction before setting the machine to go deeper on a second run and alleviate any remaining problem areas.

For more information, visit: www.campeyturfcare.com

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