Grounds and foreshore maintenance

The Parks Services Team is responsible for maintaining the following areas in around the City of Plymouth:

Floral displays

The city's annual beds are planted twice a year, in October (Spring Bedding) and in May/June (Summer Bedding). Locations include:

• Hoe Sites: The Lodge, Berni Grand, Carlton, sea front
• City centre: Drakes Drum (Royal Parade), Derry's Cross Roundabout, St Andrews Roundabout, Western Approach
• Parks: Beaumont Park, Freedom Park, Devonport Par, hanging baskets, barrier boxes and planters are also provided for the city centre and the Hoe.

Foreshore and beaches

The Park Services Team is responsible for the maintenance of eleven miles of foreshore and beaches within Plymouths boundaries. Parks services provides the staff to clean and maintain these areas of the city.

Their duties include:

• being a presence and point of contact for the public
• providing information on environmental/historical/educational issues
• checking the 50 lifebuoys weekly
• inspection of slipways
• sweeping paths areas with chlorus to prevent paths becoming slippery
• reporting storm damage
• reporting graffiti and vandalism
• checking for and removing hypodermic syringes
• litter picking
• investigating possible truants
• moving vagrants

Beach clearances are arranged with the help of the community. An example of this is Jennycliff Beach being cleaned with the help of business in the community. Volunteer members of staff from the companies taking part spent a day cleaning up the foreshore. Local companies provided food and drink for the volunteers, who worked hard to clean up the area. Take a look at the recent refurbishment work the Parks Services Team have been completing on the Hoe and Foreshore.

Hedges and trees

General amenity hedges are cut once a year, in October to avoid disturbing birds that may be nesting in the hedges.

Devon hedges are cut once a year between January to March. Some 6000 street trees are maintained annually and the removal of epicormic growth is undertaken. The remainder of the trees within Plymouth are maintained as and when required. Emergency tree work ie storm/gale damage are dealt with immediately.

Grass areas

Grass areas are cut between the months of March through to October. Grass cutting falls into the following categories:

• general amenity grass - cut 13 times a year
• rough grass areas - cut three to four times per year
• wild flower meadows (conservation areas) - cut once a year in October

Playgrounds

Plymouth City Council are responsible for approximately 150 playgrounds. The Park Services Team maintain the equipment and surrounding area in the following ways:

• all playgrounds and equipment are inspected weekly
• all playgrounds are swept and litter picked weekly
• playgrounds are also cleaned on an adhoc basis in response to requests from the public eg broken glass to cleared

Visit the Plymouth Playgrounds page for a full list of Plymouth City Council playgrounds.

Please Note: Playground staff do their best to find any faults during the inspections but it must be appreciated that like an MOT it is only as good as when it was carried out. The equipment may be vandalised or damaged within five minutes of the gang leaving the site.

Please, as a parent with young children take a moment to make an assessment of the equipment yourself, if you think it is faulty or dangerous please report the details to the park services team, this may prevent an injury to a child.

Rose and shrub beds

The Park Services Team maintain the city's rose beds in the following manner:

• rose beds are hoed and weeded once a year
• the roses are pruned in the autumn by one third to prevent wind rock
• pruned again in March to remove dead, dying and diseased wood and cut back out growing bud
• the beds are litter picked as and when required

General shrub beds are maintained in the following way:

• shrub beds are hoed and weeded once per year during the winter months
• after being hoed and weeded a non-harmful chemical is applied to the soil and this reduces weed growth dramatically
• shrub beds are pruned once a year
• shrub beds are litter picked as when required
• shrubs are pruned on adhoc basis during the year where visibility is being obscured, where pathways are being constricted by overgrowth or where the safety of the public is an issue

School grounds

Parks Services provide a grounds maintenance service to 50 to schools in Plymouth. The work had to be tendered for at each school. The work includes:

• athletic track marking
• grass cutting
• hedge maintenance
• pitch maintenance shrub bed maintenance
• playground marking (includes play marks, netball, tennis, etc)
• sports pitch marking
• tree work (Adhoc basis)
• weed kill of hard surfaces

Work on request includes:

• careers talks
• quiz sheets provided for school groups visiting the Hoe
• school safety talks regarding the dangers of large and small grass cutting machinery
• walks

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