£40k grass cutting injection after flood of Ross complaints
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A GRASS cutting firm heavily criticised for allowing grass to grow knee-high in public parks and roadside verges has landed £40,000 out of pocket.
Highland Council contractor ISS Facility Services Landscaping spent the money improving its service after thousands of fed up residents complained.
Councillors were this week given assurances that towns and villages were now trim and tidier.
Graham Mackenzie, community services committee chairman, commended the company for the extra investment, saying it was only partly to blame for the failings.
A recent scrutiny of the service found the local authority was responsible for some of the shortcomings.
But Hamish Fraser, Skye, Ross and Cromarty area committee chairman, said ISS clearly mismanaged the contract and the extra £40,000 have been invested into the service earlier.
"This isn’t something we’re getting for nothing," he said.
The council out-sourced grass cutting in 2011. The three year contract was extended and comes to an end in March.
It covers Mid and West Ross, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Lochaber and Skye. Council workers cut grass in other areas.
The multi-million pound agreement placed onus on the council to monitor the service and provide feedback to ISS. But earlier this summer, it emerged the council’s inspection methods were so muddled it was difficult to tell whether ISS was deliveringa sterling or a second-rate service. And when residents complained, bringing problems to light, the council’s monitoring officers were unable to target those towns with more frequent inspections due to inadequate databases.
Richard Evans, the council’s new head of roads and transport, who manages the grass maintenance services, defended his team.
He said it was staffed by only three individuals who were tasked to look after the whole of the Highlands, insisting: "We have never had enough people on the ground".
Area committee councillors debated the matter in Dingwall on Wednesday.
They were told a review is being launched to allow the council to prioritise which areas should be cut more often and which are not as important. Members will feed their views into this study.
Most councillors agreed that ISS workers were now more focussed on the job.
Angela MacLean, Liberal Democrat member for Dingwall and Seaforth, has seen a "massive improvement" in grass cutting in her ward in recent weeks.
Fellow councillor Margaret Paterson praised the grass-cutting in Dingwall’s Peffrey Park.
And Richard Greene, independent member for Wester Ross, Strathpeffer and Lochalsh, was more than happy with the grass cutting service in his area.
But fellow ward councillor Isabelle Campbell said people living in her locality were not so fortunate.
"I went to a meeting at Glenelg Primary School the other night," she said. "I spent an hour weeding because you could hardly get in with the weeds. Richard lives in Gairloch, which is serviced by the contractor. I live in Lochalsh, which is covered by the council’s in-house team."
