With spring just around the corner, grass cutting is soon set to resume in Plymouth.
Just like last year, we're planning on leaving 40 per cent of the grass that we manage uncut for nature.
That doesn’t mean we'll be letting everything grow wild. We will continue to keep the parks and open spaces that are so vital to people’s wellbeing managed. We’ll also still need to cut some areas to ensure that roads are safe.
But where we’ve got grassy areas that are of more use to wildlife than people - like steep banks, some verges and the fringe of open spaces - we’ll be cutting around the edges and then leaving the rest to grow wild.
This will be great news for people and wildlife. Longer grass and flowers provide food and homes for pollinating insects like bees and butterflies – and all manner of wildlife, help reduce our total carbon footprint and by the summer, will mean there will be all kinds of interesting colours and life where once there was only green.
But we are making a few subtle changes from what we did last year.
Last year, we paused cutting during May in support of the No Mow May campaign.
However, May was very wet and very warm and this, added to the staffing issues forced on us at the time by the pandemic meant that grass got longer than we could have imagined.
Residents spoke to us and we listened.
So whilst we'll still be supporting the principles of No Mow May, this year we will be continuing to cut the grass areas we need to throughout the season.
We’ve sought advice from experts, both externally and through our Green Minds initiative, and we believe that our strategy is nature positive enough in its entirety that not cutting for a month would be of little benefit and we’re confident that our approach finds pretty much the right balance.
To help residents understand where and when we will or won't be cutting, we’ve put together another interactive map of the whole city which will show you exactly where we have created designated wildflower meadows, the places where we will be leaving them to grow naturally and the places we'll be cutting regularly.
Yellow - Cut on four-six week cycle | Orange - Edged | Purple - Wildflower meadows
Again, there are some changes from last year based on feedback we've received from residents and ward councillors.
Councillor Maddi Bridgeman, Cabinet member for the Environment and Street Scene, said: "Amending the grass cutting cycles to prioritise nature is something we must do if we are to meet our ambitious climate emergency targets.
“We must provide stepping stones for nature by rewilding areas that are of little use to residents.
"But we also get there is a balance between that and delivering what residents have told us that they value here and now and I think that this year's strategy – a sort of low mow May – gets that about right.”
Andrew Whitehouse from Buglife, added: "We are in the midst of a biodiversity crisis, and it is vital that we all do as much as we can to restore wilder places for nature.
“By reducing cutting on 40% of the grassland it manages, Plymouth City Council are providing space for wildlife within our city. This will enable wildflowers to flourish and will help bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects to thrive.”
Find out more about our grass cutting strategy at: www.plymouth.gov.uk/grasscutting