On my local common today - grass kept short as it's mainly playing fields, etc, and now as dry as I've ever seen it - was a contractor with a petrol strimmer. Doing path borders. Creating the most amazing amount of dust. Wonder what jobsworth sent him out?
it would be an agrred contract. "Strim path edges monthly."
Yep I saw the surrounds of a petrol forecourt being scalped by a contractor with a lawnmower today, similar clouds of dust ...
Serco PFI contract ?.
Except that they tend to cut the grass in March when there is bugger all to cut, then you don't see them for 2 months by whcih time it is about 8 inches high, so when cut it smothers the grass and causes moss.
Likely. Same as the leaf blower ones in the autumn. Move the leaves elsewhere then come back and do the same tomorrow. ;-)
So they buy a big fleet of mowers. They cut the grass in all the parks in March and then put all the mowers away. Then 2 months later they get them all out again. In the meantime the drivers of these mowers or maybe its operatives nowadays will have been sat the canteen playing cards. Or possibly engaging with their mobile phones.
No wonder the Council Tax is so high.
michael adams
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It's an interesting one, since my council (Wandsworth) were at the forefront of privatizing services. Refuse collection being one of the first. When a new contractor is appointed, they usually make a decent job. Things like having someone clear up after the main collection. But that soon stops. Now they are piling up everything for collection at several points some time before the truck arrives. So twice the opportunity for spillage. Which is exactly what happens.
They've also had contractors laying new pavements. Actual working hours seem to be 08.30 - 16.00. With at least 2 hours off for lunch. Just the sort of thing the Express would rant on about if direct labour.
Except that this is a fixed-price contract, and the employees won't idle out their retirement from aged 60 on a gold-plated pension paid for by council tax payers.
Then the council paid too much for that fixed price contract. Which will of course include a profit to the contractor.
Very sad to know you don't approve of pensions. Your view will likely change when you get older.
Laying new paving has became something of a mania with some councils.
The inadequacy of which in large paved areas is immediately betrayed the first time it rains for any length of time; when garden pond sized puddles immediately start forming where they'd never formed before.
michael adams
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It was with Wandsworth quite a few years ago. The odd thing being they did the other side of the road perhaps 30 years ago to their new corporate design, smaller flagstones and about 4 couses of bricks to the road side. Not a bad idea as that copes with tree roots rather better. But not this side. When they did this side recently to the same design, I didn't expect them to redo the other side too - as it had survived pretty well.
No complaints about the standard of work here. Just the time they've taken to do it.
I approve of pensions. What I don't approve of is Gordon Brown raiding the private sector pension system of 5 billion a year, but keeping gold plated pensions for the civil service (and platinum plated for MPs).
Andy
Better to just tell the ones paying you have done the job, get paid and not bother doing the job.
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