A COUNCIL has pledged to improve grounds maintenance across the borough after grass cutting services fail to meet resident’s expectations.

Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead have pledged to improve grass cutting and hedge pruning this year and have thanked residents for their patience.

The authority has asked residents to ‘bear with’ as they start to see piles of clippings on verges which should ‘rot down’ over the years.

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In addition to hedge and grass cutting, a new cemetery manager has been employed to oversee that all cemeteries are of an ‘expected standard’.

Councillor Richard Coe, the cabinet member for environmental services, said: “Grass cutting in the Royal Borough hasn’t met residents’ expectations for several years.

“This was repeated again this spring, with lots of areas not getting the mowing they needed prior to May.

 “Since May I have been working hard with officers to get this year’s grass cutting and hedge pruning caught up.

“We’d like to again thank residents for their patience, while officers have worked urgently behind the scenes with our contractor to agree a robust action plan to catch up on this work.

 “The council is working to improve grounds maintenance across the borough, both this year and going forward.

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“Our catch-up plan on grass-cutting is now in action. As part of the plan extra mowing equipment and an agreed schedule of works has been agreed to bring grass verges back up to the required standard over the coming weeks.”

He added: “In the meantime, please continue to bear with us: we know this is an issue and we are working on it.

“We will see piles of clippings on verges, consistent with the current mowing contract, which has been in place for some years. These cuttings should rot down over time returning nutrients to the soil.

 “In some areas the borough has wildlife verges and areas of conservation grass, which are maintained for the benefit of nature and are cut to a different schedule, in these areas cutting is generally less frequent, but clippings removed as this favours a range of wildflowers.

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 “Alongside this robust action plan on grass-cutting, the council has also recently recruited to the vacant position of cemetery manager which has been empty for some time, this position has been hard to fill, but the new officer is now in place and is already working with our contractor to ensure all cemeteries are managed to the standards we expect.”