Celebrating a year of in-house grounds maintenance

In the first year, the team has mowed 311,000 m2 of grass, maintained 41,000m2 of shrub beds, trimmed 44,000m of hedges, emptied more than 150 litter bins every week, and planted around 6,000 summer bedding plants and bulbs. This has been done alongside the day-to-day work which has covered inspecting and maintaining play parks and the cemetery and crematorium, health and safety inspections of waterways, repairing and maintaining small assets (benches/fences, for example), supporting community groups and events, and maintaining sports pitches and fine turf, such as football pitches, bowls greens and cricket squares.

The team has also supported the implementation of the countryside stewardship grant at Hastings Country Park Nature Reserve. All the cuttings from their maintenance work, including shrub beds and hedge works, has been composted.

Cllr Jo Walker, lead councillor for environment, said: “I’d like to thank all our grounds maintenance staff for their hard work in this first year. Their first year has thrown lots of challenges at them with unseasonable amounts of rain throughout, but even through this, they have produced some fantastic displays in our parks and green spaces, and I know residents and visitors have appreciated these.

“I also want to say thank you to the many volunteer groups we have across the town who help with litter picking and tidying up some of our green spaces. They do a fantastic job of supporting us and our grounds maintenance team. We will continue to work hard to keep these open spaces as places for everyone to enjoy, we know how important being outside is for physical and mental health and we are lucky to have so many in our town.”