An unkind cut? When should road verges be mown?

It’s the time of year that I start to receive calls from residents who are concerned that the verges have not been cut.

Full information about the Grass Cutting Programme across the county can be found on Suffolk County Council website HERE   I can divulge however  that on smaller roads the verge is only cut once a year .  The C road programme this year commenced on June 6^th.  The whole process will take around 6 weeks, so should be completed by the week beginning 18^th July.

It is very important that verges are not cut too early for reasons connected with biodiversity.  The charity Plantlife  has recently launched a campaign to encourage better management of verges.Information on this is available HERE.  If these are routinely cut too early some 700 species of plants are put at risk.  The practice is also bad for insect and birds that rely on plants for food. 

Suffolk’s policy, while better than cutting earlier, does not it seems represent absolutely the best practice.  Plantlife suggest that to achieve the best outcome for nature verges should not be cut until mid July to September.  However, the damage in Suffolk is somewhat mitigated by the fact that only a strip a little over a meter is cut, and a number of areas have been designated as wildlife sites, and are left uncut.  This is OK, but ideally some maintenance should be carried out on these sites from time to time.   I am not sure to what extent this happens, but at the end of the day as always limited resources have to be taken into account.

I spend a lot of time driving on C roads around the Division, and I am aware that one has to take a little more care at this time of year due to the occasional lower level of visibility caused by higher vegetation levels. Of course if a junction or corner becomes dangerous, the team will go out to remedy this as soon as possible.  Problems of this type should be reported on the County Council website.

I actually think that people drive much too fast on country roads, and believe that it is no bad thing if people find they need to slow down and enjoy the countryside at this beautiful time of the year.  In any event, we owe it to wildlife and the planet to go easy with the mowing machines.