Overgrowing verge prompts online row
OVERGROWN verges on a section of main road through a village have sparked a social media storm.
Photos of the stretch of Station Road in Bagworth between the old Dunlop site and Park Lane appeared on the community’s Facebook site, with questions raised as to who was responsible for cutting.
Described as full of grass and weeds about two foot tall and looking a mess, the ‘eyesore’ area was also logged on Leicestershire County Council’s new interactive online mowing mapping page.
Freshly launched, the web facility allows people to put in their postcode or street name and check the grass cutting schedule or report a problem with tootall plants.
Newly elected Conservative county councillor for Markfield, Desford and Thornton, Peter Bedford was quickly on the Station Road case, assuring Bagworth News Facebook followers the issue had been officially noted.
Reaction to the overgrown verge continued to be mixed, with some expressing frustration at the sight while others suggested it gave a ‘countryside’ feel and was a boon for wild flora and fauna.
A spokesman for Leicestershire County Council said they hadn’t missed any grass cutting in Bagworth which was due to take place last week - from May 15 onwards.
“In terms of our overall approach, our grass cutting is carried out for reasons of safety rather than purely for aesthetic appearance.
“However, in rural locations such as Bagworth, we do only cut the first metre of a grass verge in order to strike the balance of leaving the highway in a safe state for users while limiting the effect on the natural inhabitants.”
The new mapping tool is an attempt to provide rapid response to members of the public concerned about grass cutting and its regularity.
A reduction in mowing of urban verges by the county from six to five in 2015 resulted in rafts of complaints.
More than 1,400 calls or messages came in by the end of the mowing season in that year - a 31 per cent increase.
Residents and community leaders griped about the unsightly verges and warned of safety issues with shrubs and grass obscuring motorists’ visibility.
There was an outcry on social media and questions were raised by ward councillors at County Hall.
A review called for by the Liberal Democrats revealed the reduction resulted in such a fall in standards that mowing had to be redone at a cost of £100,000.
In response councillors supported officer proposals to return to six cuts, introduce a variable cutting frequency and get more mowers out during the peak growing season of mid-May to the end of June.
These actions ensured complaints last year fell by a whopping 40% on 2015 to under 900.
The equivalent of 28 football pitches are cut each day in the county’s towns and villages by seven two-person gangs using a ride-on mower with flail and a strimmer.
Rural routes between towns and villages are being cut in single onemetre swathes - hence the Station Road situation.
The grass verges and banks are cut for safety reasons to ensure that visibility is not restricted for motorists and cyclists at junctions and to make sure the width of pavements is not reduced.
Although the majority of highway verges are the responsibility of the council, some are privately owned, and some are managed by contractors on the council’s behalf.
The council aims to cut the grass within five working days of the scheduled date. This could change depending on the weather.
The new tool can be found at: www.leicestershire.gov.uk/popular-now/ grass-cutting