The Environmental Services Department cuts the grass on the majority of all Council's parks, public open spaces and highway verges around the City. Council owned housing areas are maintained by a private contractor working on behalf of Derby Homes. Council owned grassed areas add up to over 13% of the total area of the city and cover over 1000 hectares, or four square miles.

We aim to cut the grass on verges, open spaces and parks 15 times each year between March and October. We try to do this every two weeks, but may be delayed by bad weather. If there is little or no grass growth during spells of very dry weather we may need to postpone mowing until the grass starts to grow again.

We cut some areas less often. These include areas planted with flowering bulbs, young tree saplings and the wild flower meadows in some of the parks.

Grass cuttings

We use mowers which leave the grass cuttings in place, as this provides important nutrients which benefit the new grass. Grass cuttings may fall onto footpaths and roadways, especially when it’s windy, but we only remove them from the pathways around certain sheltered housing areas. This is because grass cutting in the city costs over £1 million each year and would cost a lot more if we collected the cuttings. The Council provides a wide range of services and has many budget pressures, and we must make priorities to minimise the burden on council tax payers.

Highways agency

The Highways Agency is responsible for grass cutting on trunk road verges and roundabouts not owned by the Council. These are the:

A38
A516 from the City Hospital Roundabout to the city boundary heading towards Etwall
A52 from Raynesway to the city boundary at Spondon
A5111 Raynesway, from its junction with the A52 to its junction with new A6 Alvaston bypass
A6 Alvaston bypass from the above junction to the city boundary.

There are 50 sites in Derby owned by developers that are often mistaken for Council-owned public open spaces. It is the developers’ responsibility to maintain these areas.

Contact us

We aim to achieve high standards in our grass cutting service and will investigate and respond to any complaints.  If you have a query about grass cutting, please contact us. Also see frequently asked questions

Telephone 01332 293111

Fax 01332 255121

email customerservices@derby.gov.uk