Grounds maintenance

Our approach to grounds maintenance

Where our properties or developments have shared garden or lawn areas, we may provide a grounds maintenance service. Residents pay for this service through a weekly service charge.

What we mean by grounds maintenance

We use grounds maintenance contractors to look after any shared grassed or planted areas at your property. Their responsibilities include:

• cutting the grass
• trimming hedges and shrubs
• removing litter and garden waste
• clearing leaves
• weeding.

Trees

We maintain a database of trees on our developments that are our responsibility. We make sure that these trees are safe and that they do not obstruct properties, roads or pavements. Wherever possible we aim to preserve trees and not cut them down.

Some trees on our developments fall under the responsibility of the local authority or individual residents. If you have concerns about the safety or maintenance of a tree, please contact our customer contact team so that we can check who is responsible for it.

Private gardens

Our grounds maintenance service does not cover residents private gardens. Older or vulnerable residents who have a private garden may be able to get help with garden maintenance jobs through our free Garden Guardians service.

What you can expect from our service

We are committed to maintaining high standards at our properties and developments. In providing you with estate services, we aim to:

• remove offensive graffiti within 24 hours of it being reported to us and other graffiti within 5 days
• keep roads, paths and other hard areas clean and clear of dumped items
• keep play areas clean and safe
• keep garden areas free of litter
• make sure lighting in shared areas is in good working order
• deal with illegally parked or abandoned vehicles.

Making sure we are succeeding

We conduct regular site inspections to make sure that the shared areas of our buildings are well maintained. We encourage residents to take part in these inspections and advertise the dates on noticeboards in shared areas and on our website. We carry out a survey every two years and use your feedback to help improve our services.