As part of my efforts to adopt a poorly managed bit of local verge, I’ve taken two approaches.
First, I emailed my local ward councillor who also happens to be Southwark Council’s Cabinet member for Highways and the Environment and asked for her support. I’ve chased for a response twice but received nothing to date.
Second, I sent a complaint to the Council about the over-mowing, because I know they’re required to respond to this. I got a reply from them today as shown below. If I’m understanding this right, it’s saying that the verge in question is actually the responsibility of the “local housing office” rather than the “cleaning” team (both delivered in-house in Southwark rather than contracted) even though it is the cleaning team who actually mowed it and are responsible for other verges. It is great to hear from C that my complaint led to a site visit and his commitment to protecting the local environment. I’ve gone back to him to check I’ve understood his reply.
Seems like one of the fundamental problems here is that looking after verges is seen by the Council as “cleaning”.
Hi Amanda
Thank you for your recent email and photo received on the 8th of October 2020 regarding the cutting of the grass verge, on the corner of Crescent wood road, the area in question does not form part of our scheduled works and is cut as a curtesy, when out team visits the site.
I have had my Grounds Maintenance supervisor visit the area this morning and he has confirmed to me that the area has grown back and will not be cut again this year.
I fully support community involvement and also encouraging and protecting the local environment, unfortunately it is not for me to hand over the grounds maintenance duties to individuals, but there are grants and schemes you can apply for that may help in your pursuits. The council is currently running the cleaner greener, safer, scheme. This is a scheme that encourages local individuals and community groups that have ideas on how to protect and encourage the natural environment and to also promote community spirit, by granting funds for areas that the individual or group feels that may benefit from these ideas. Details can be found on the council website; http://www.southwarkcouncil.co.uk or you could contact your local housing office who will be able to direct you to who to contact in regards, to maintaining the land.
Please feel free to contact me if I can be of any further assistance.
C
Freelance Nature Writer 
Hi Amanda,
This appears to be a typical situation for many local authorities.
It started back in the days of CCT (Compulsory Competitive Tendering) in the late 80’s which had the effect of splitting up the different services of the la’s to achieve “Best Value”.
This saw grounds maintenance and street cleansing contracts invariably secured by 2 different contractors. Mutual co-operation of departments ended. Grounds maintenance started using weed killers to maintain hard surfaces as they no longer had access to street sweepers then street cleansing found out how much they could save by not sweeping and now use herbicides to maintain weed growth on hard surfaces instead of sweeping them. Verges fell in to a gap where the responsibilities have been so blurred. Many areas are now in the situation of only carrying out maintenance when someone complains. We have ended up with multiple interests. Contractors, local authorities, residents etc. We favour IWM (Integrated Weed Management). This requires a a champion who is able to work across departments and stakeholder groups. In amenity settings (ie not agriculture) IWM seeks to maintain our built environment via a series of common sense nature based solutions. You can find out more about our ideas by searching for Kersten IWM.
We are a commercial business selling solutions to folk who are responsible for maintaining out outdoor built environment.
I believe we have PAN UK as a common interest group.
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