Information about grass verges across the city.
Cityparks is responsible for mowing grass verges along the public highway. This includes cutting grassed areas around social housing developments.
We aim to cut highway grass verges 6 times spaced evenly between March and November.
We keep some road verges as wildflower and meadow verges. These are left to grow during the spring and summer, so plants are able to flower and set seed.
Read more about our wilder verges project.
We use ride on mowers to cut highway verges which we can’t operate in certain areas. For example underneath trees or around obstructions like bollards. If it’s possible, we’ll follow up by strimming the verge and we’ll prioritise cutting around things like signs.
Some slopes are too steep to cut, but we'll aim to cut back long grass that restricts pedestrian access.
Sometimes we can't access the verge. For example if there are cars parked or obstructions in the verge like posts, stones, rocks or fly tipped objects. Bad weather and ground conditions can also impact mowing.
If we have not been able to finish cutting a verge, we will try to finish it on the next round.
If you need to report fly tipping, you can report a problem and request a clean-up.
It too expensive for us to remove grass clippings after mowing. Leaving the clippings on verges to decompose is a sustainable and cost-efficient practice and is in line with other local authorities.
If we've left grass clippings on the pavement you can contact cityparks to report it and we’ll do our best to remove it.
Each verge cutting round takes about 4 weeks. Sometimes this can vary because of bad weather or urgent service requests from residents. Letting all car owners and residents know in advance is not possible or cost-effective.
We are not obliged to maintain verges to a certain standard, or have a budget for installing bollards to prevent people parking on verges.
Residents can pay for wooden bollards to be installed on verges, if they are installed by our approved contractor. For more information, send an email to info@edburtoncontractors.co.uk.
Before getting bollards installed take into consideration that they can make verge maintenance more difficult, as these areas cannot be cut by our ride on mowers.
We do not advise residents to install their own objects on verges to prevent parking, as this can cause damage to vehicles and delay grass cutting.
If you’re concerned about cars parking on verges on your street, you can report a vehicle parked where it should not be.
Although we mow verges during the spring and summer, we do not have a statutory duty to maintain them to a certain standard. We cannot take any action regarding muddy verges.
We do not repair damage to verges caused by vehicles driving or parking on them, unless the damage presents significant safety issues on the carriageway or footway.