Call for action to tidy up Newmarket's verges

A town councillor has called for action to get the town’s grassed areas tidied up.

Cllr Tom Kerby said the authority should be prepared to cancel its contract with the district council unless things improved.

“We can’t carry on like it is,” he said. “We must put pressure on the district council to fulfil its contract and if they can’t do it we should cancel our contract.”

The council was told that Suffolk County Council cuts the verges it was responsible for in Newmarket just once a year and was now actively trying to encourage residents to ‘do it themselves’.

Town council manager Roberta Bennett said the county authority was ‘reaching out to communities offering to train volunteers and offer tools so parishes and towns could take ownership of their own highways setting’.

Last year the contract for the then Forest Heath area for grass cutting once every three weeks throughout the spring, summer and early autumn, held previously for 15 years by Red Lodge-based SP Landscapes, was taken ‘in house’ by the district council and since then there have been a number of complaints about the state of the town’s verges and public grassed areas.

“There needs to be some regime in place and if the town keeps looking untidy then we have to decide what we are going to do about it,” said Cllr Kerby.

“If works have not been carried out according to our agreement then we should be seeking compensation for the cuts that have not been made.”