To approve the Minutes of the meeting of the Services Overview & Scrutiny Committee held on 3 November 2021 and published on the Council’s website.
Minutes:
The Minutes of the Special meeting held on 3 November 2021 were approved as a correct record.
Cllr Jenny Else asked for a response on a number of outstanding actions from the last meeting of Community Wellbeing O&S Committee, held on 15 September:
- Kelvin Mills would provide information on grounds maintenance tasks carried out by Continental during ‘No Mow May’ (see Secretary’s note below).
- Louise Norie confirmed that the Corporate Strategy did include action (8.8) to support the most vulnerable in our communities, particularly those experiencing social isolation, loneliness and poor mental health.
- Mark Mills advised that there was probably little benefit to having updates from the Health & Wellbeing Board as a standing agenda item, given the workload of the committee; substantive items could be brought to committee for scrutiny as they arose.
- An update on the Leisure Services contract was currently on the committee’s work programme for January 2022.
- The police had confirmed that the problem in categorising rural crime correctly had been addressed and was being monitored by the Borough Commander.
Secretary’s note re Grounds Maintenance tasks carried out during ‘No Mow May’
All of the teams who would usually have been grass cutting were moved onto other grounds maintenance tasks during the No Mow May period. These tasks included hand weeding hard surface areas in parks and housing sites, topping up the bark pits in our play areas and cutting back grass that had started to grow over the edges of paths.
While weeding hard surfaces is within the contract, having staff available to hand weed helped towards our commitment to reducing the use of pesticides as part of our Pesticide Policy and Action Plan. Topping up the bark pits within our play areas is also part of the contract but it’s a much quicker process to distribute the bark to sites across the borough when there are more people to help and it allowed the playground inspector to continue with other repairs.
We are always aware of grass encroaching over the edge of paths and reducing the width of path available for users but as this is not including in the contract sum and is treated as additional work for most areas we are rarely able to clear them all each year. However, it was one of the tasks that we decided to focus on during No Mow May and a review of Continental Landscapes’ work programme tells me that the paths were edged at sites including Griggs Meadow in Dunsfold, The Glebe in Ewhurst, Queens Mead in Chiddingfold, Chestnut Avenue car park in Haslemere, and College Gardens and Riverside Court in Farnham. There will be no additional charge for this as the grass cutting teams were redeployed to that task.
As Continental continued to cut the grass in senior living sites, playgrounds and sports pitches while also undertaking all other non-grass related tasks during May, the only teams that were affected were the verge teams which accounts for just six members of staff. They were assigned other tasks, provided cover for colleagues who were on holiday or off during that period and supported some of the other teams with their regular work but we appreciate that the results of some of this work might not be obvious to residents who would have preferred the grass to be cut during May. It’s something that we will add to the feedback received during this period and we will think about how we share information with our residents and promote our work in the future.