Ernie Clark. Hilperton Division, Wiltshire Council.

Will the time scale be met?

The following email has been sent by the portfolio holder responsible for grass cutting. As an aside, a motion of 'No confidence' in the responsible Cabinet member is likely to be put forward at the next meeting of WC in July. (By Independent councillors - naturally.)

'Answer given to Full Council on 13th May.

'WC officers and BBLP spent a lot of time earlier in the year producing definitive maps of all grass cutting areas and issued these to the town and parish councils so that they too would have a definitive record. From these definitive maps BBLP were tasked with producing grass cutting schedules and identifying the resource they would apply to each area. BBLP did this, showing the levels that would be applied to each area, north, south, east and west. During our regular service meetings with BBLP we expressed concern about the resource being allocated to the West, and to a lesser extent the South.

We made it clear to BBLP that we did not think enough resource was being applied to the West. However, this is a service contract, and we can only determine the outcome of the service not the input. We therefore monitored the situation through the first cut of the year and into the second cut of the year. Because of our concerns about resource levels, and through our regular weekly review meetings, we elicited a number of response measures that would be invoked if BBLP were to fall behind the agreed schedules.

At the end of cut 1 BBLP were on schedule in the East and the North, but behind in both the West and the South. However the situation was redeemable so we did not invoke the special measures agreed. During the last week of April our concerns increased re the West falling further behind so on 30th April we requested that the special measures be invoked immediately. Additional teams were employed over the bank holiday weekend at the start of May and by 7th May an additional 3 teams of grass cutters, 9 personal, were allocated to the West to bring it back to schedule. This additional resource will be provided for the foreseeable future to support grass cutting across the county to ensure appropriate standards are maintained. The impact of these additional teams could be seen immediately and we will remain until the schedules and all back on time.'

Looking at the reality of all of this on the ground in Trowbridge, the impact of all this is that over the last 3 weeks BBLP have deployed further significant additional resource to bring the Trowbridge area back under control so that we can move back to schedule cutting from next week.

However, as you quite rightly comment, when grass is left without being cut, when it is cut it leaves a poor cut and a mess. This will be the case until a second cycle of cuts is made on those areas. None of these additional resources used have cost Wiltshire Council any additional money and is at the cost of BBLP. All of the BBLP staff are trained and qualified for their work and their services are monitored. The problem was simply that in the Trowbridge area BBLP allocated too little resource to meet the demand which resulted in the operation running behind schedule. The resultant poor quality of the work is more a fault of the lack of resource than the poor workmanship of the individual operators.'