Bathurst council altering mowing services to address overgrown grass

Over summer, numerous residents raised the issue of unkempt public spaces, with the mowing schedule unable to keep up with the level of growth across the city.

The issue has been raised again, with council in May reviewing its verge mowing services.

The conclusion of the report by council staff will come as good news for some in the community and bad news for others.

As a policy, council was not meant to mow verges, with the expectation being that occupiers of residential properties and businesses undertake mowing maintenance activities to the verge areas adjacent to their property.

However, a recent audit found that there were 31 sections of road throughout Bathurst where council staff were maintaining the verges "for reasons not readily identified".

In light of this, council last month resolved to maintain verge mowing in line with its policy, meaning that those 31 areas will no longer be tended to by council staff.

It is anticipated that this will save in excess of 100 hours of staff, equipment and resource time per mowing cycle, which council plans to redirect to its other maintenance commitments.

"It should be noted that the majority of mowing complaints that council receives from the community relate to the perceived lack of attention and unacceptable time periods taken between mowing operations at its 283 parks, reserves, walkways and open space areas that are the sole responsibility of council," director of Engineering Services Darren Sturgiss said.

"The time saved by removing verge mowing works adjacent to occupied premises will be directed towards trying to reduce the time taken between mowing cycles in the key residential parks and reserve areas."

In his report, Mr Sturgiss outlined the challenges council has faced in recent years to maintain these facilities.

READ MORE: Council used extra staff and overtime to try to manage grass growth

They include the ongoing acquisition of additional land areas that require mowing maintenance activities, and increased maintenance due to higher service level requirements.

Legislative changes have also increased workloads for council, and there have been increases in the quality of maintenance and the levels of service due to the requirement to provide regional sports surfaces that meet player expectations.

"In addition to the above-mentioned city expansion, regulatory and community pressures, it should be noted that significant climatic conditions these past two summers has further restricted council's ability to meet and keep on top of expected service levels," Mr Sturgiss said.

"With Council's existing mowing resources, staff have simply not been able to keep up with the rapid grass growth that is being experienced throughout all areas of Bathurst, due to higher than usual rain periods that have occurred since the drought finished in September 2020.

"For these past two spring/summer growing periods Bathurst has encountered an extraordinarily [high] level of rain producing ideal growing conditions that have resulted in excessive, rapid and ongoing grass growth throughout the entire growing season."

In addition to redirecting some of its resources to parks, reserves, walkways and open spaces, council is also increasing the quantity of equipment assigned to mowing maintenance crews by keeping machinery longer than planned for replacement.

While these measures are expected to help to address the overgrown grass problem, the report states that "park maintenance activities will continue to be further stretched as the city and maintenance demands keep expanding".

"It is believed that until such time that Council is able to afford the additional staff and resources needed to keep on top of maintenance activities ... consideration must be made in respect to other possible options that council can adopt in order to decrease the time taken to complete a full cycle of maintenance to all of its parks, reserves, open spaces and road reserve areas with little to no additional cost," Mr Sturgiss said.

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