Council received hundreds of complaints about state of grass in Derby

Hundreds of complaints were made to Derby City Council earlier this year over the state and length of grass on verges, parks and cemeteries. The council received at least 500 complaints over the summer - but the total number received is understood to be much higher, according to a new report.

In May and June a row broke out between councillors and Derby City Council leaders about the time it was taking for grass to be cut across the city. Unhappy Conservative councillors in both Allestree and Mickleover hit out at the Labour-led authority for the state of grass on verges and parks, claiming council tax-payers “deserved better”.

Residents were unhappy too. Some described the long grass as “dangerous” for motorists and others said it was simply “too long”. It’s been said “some were standing in dog mess they couldn’t see because the grass was so long”.

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At the time the council said in response that its ground maintenance teams were responding accordingly “to one of the wettest winters on record”. At a Communities, Public Protection and Housing scrutiny board meeting on Monday night (November 18) bosses of the council’s grounds maintenance were grilled by councillors over what happened in the summer.

The meeting followed the publication of a report which said the council was looking to learn lessons from the summer’s grass-cutting saga and make short-term and medium-term improvements. The report says complaints were “predominantly focussed” on grass verges, smaller wedges of green open space and Nottingham Road Cemetery.

It says: “Between the months of January to October 2024, there were 534 customer enquiries logged on Firmstep (a communication system) though these figures don’t include enquiries from other sources such as direct email enquiries from residents, businesses, internal council departments and members etc.”

Lee Wheatley from Derby City Council told the meeting that climate change was a key factor to why the grass was so long - extending a normal mowing turnover for Derby from six weeks to 10-12 weeks. He added that current machinery was at the “end of its life” which was causing issues.

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The ground service manager added there were recruitment challenges too because there were better offers for gardeners from the private sector. Mr Wheatley said: “When we’ve had people leave, it has not been that easy to get people back into those posts quickly, especially skilled gardeners. Staffline, who is our agency provider, have been struggling to get agency people in. We normally wouldn’t take in agency staff when people are off sick because we are then paying twice for an operative.”

The council says it plans to upgrade its mowing machinery which can better handle long grass. Council bosses are also keen to develop a “formal grassland management plan” which could see staff assessing grassed areas - with communities - across the city and then deciding how frequently they should be cut.

Oakwood councillor Matthew Eyre said at the meeting he felt communication needed to improve. He said: “Every councillor in this room and every councillor in the council can tell you what the feedback from residents was about grass cutting this year.

“From a certain point councillors were saying ‘we’re not getting the answers’ and we were told to go straight to the service. This then increased the workload for you (the grounds maintenance department) because you were having to reply to people and get those messages out.

“It is a thankless job. It’s not about blaming anybody for this, we know how hard the job is. But residents see grass cutting as a ‘basic’ service they pay for out of their council tax and expect it to be done.”

Mr Wheatley said: “We can definitely do communications better.”

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