The first scheduled mowing of roadside grass verges in Oxford is now complete as part of the citywide grass-cutting schedule – with all public grassed areas visited over eight weeks.
As the highways authority, Oxfordshire County Council is responsible for management of the verges and it contracts Oxford City Council to mow these areas in line with the County policy. This stipulates a single cut in the late summer and no collection of grass cuttings, with an additional earlier cut to manage overgrowth of footpaths and cycleways.
Oxford City Council is responsible for other land such as parks and housing estates and sets the schedule for mowing these areas. Oxford City Council’s wholly-owned direct services business ODS undertakes all of the mowing operations across Oxford.
ODS started its first scheduled cut on 5 June, as part of the two-cut programme for roadside verges in Oxford. This first cut was specifically to help avoid grass creating an obstruction/hazard to pavements, road/cycleways, or buildings, as directed by the County Council.
Due to unusually warm and wet weather conditions, grass across Oxford had grown much higher than usual – which presented additional resourcing challenges for ODS, as it is more difficult to cut. The weather conditions also meant the ground was waterlogged, therefore ODS was unable to carry out its scheduled mowing in March and early April in some parks and housing areas.
In order to address these challenges, ODS increased resourcing to carry out grass verge cutting, and mowed all public grassed areas in Oxford over eight weeks.
Now, following the completion of this work, parks and estates across Oxford will be regularly mowed as well as work to maintain hedges and shrub beds. The second scheduled cut of roadside verges is expected to take place in September.
ODS will continue to maintain and mow grass verges near junctions and locations where visibility could be impeded. Any resident who is concerned about visibility on a grass verge, can report it on FixMyStreet. The location will then be reviewed by ODS and will be incorporated into scheduled work.
The exception to the first mow schedule are eight roads that formed part of Oxford City Council’s original 'no mow' pilot: Marston Road, Sunderland Avenue, Headley Way, the Roundway, Bayswater Road, Abingdon Road, Abberbury roundabout, and Grenoble Road.
In these areas, a single cut once a year has been found to increase biodiversity. Therefore, these streets will be cut once a year in September, with the grass cuttings collected to further help boost biodiversity and encourage a greater variety of wildflowers to establish.
More information on the grass cutting approach can be found on the grass verges policy page.
"I want to thank Oxford residents for bearing with us while we carried out the first cut of roadside grass verges. This first scheduled cut was particularly challenging due to unseasonable growth following large amounts of rain in the spring – so thank you for your patience. I also want to thank colleagues at ODS for their hard work over the past few weeks to carry out the scheduled program.”
Councillor Anna Railton, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Zero Carbon Oxford
Rate this page
