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Home > Your community > Grounds maintenance

Grounds maintenance

We are responsible for maintaining Cottsway-owned land. Where our homes or developments have shared garden or lawn areas, we may provide a grounds maintenance service.

We uses contractor, John O'Conner GM Ltd and Cirencester Grounds Maintenance, to look after any communal grassed or planted areas. They also help us to maintain other areas of Cottsway-owned land and carry out work including:

  • grass cutting
  • trimming hedges and shrubs
  • removing litter and garden waste
  • clearing leaves
  • maintaining hardstandings / paths / paved areas

Working with our grounds maintenance contractors, we are keen to help us improve the biodiversity of the grounds they maintain on our behalf. This could include increasing the number of wildflower areas on Cottsway land, more bird boxes and bug hotels or simply planting flowering bulbs that will help attract and support wildlife.

We’d like to know which areas you would like to see improved in your neighbourhood so that we can plan ahead. To let us know what wildlife improvements you’d like, please:

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

It is an offence under Section 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981 to intentionally take, damage or destroy the nest of any wild bird while it is in use or being built. Therefore we avoid hedge cutting during the main nesting season, which usually runs throughout March to August each year. This can be weather dependent so we always check carefully for active nests prior to cutting.  

Some trees and hedgerows on our sites fall under the responsibility of the local authority or individuals. If you have concerns about the safety or maintenance of a tree or hedgerow, we can check who is responsible for it, please contact us

Our grounds maintenance service does not cover customers’ private gardens. Older customers or those with a disability who have a private garden may be able to get help with garden maintenance jobs through our free assisted gardening scheme. See: Help with decorating and gardening

While we maintain our land, your local council/s are responsible for public roads, pavements, footpaths and street lighting, and there are sometimes also other parties responsible for maintenance and upkeep.

You can report a highways issue such as potholes and broken streetlights direct to your local council via:

Making sure we are succeeding

Estate inspections

We hold regular estate inspections to make sure that the communal areas of our buildings are well-maintained, with high standards of cleaning and grounds maintenance. We check the condition of your estate, buildings and communal areas and report any maintenance repairs required.

We encourage customers to take part in these inspections. For more information, including how we deal with other issues such as graffiti and abandoned vehicles, see: Estate inspections

Unhappy with the service provided?

This contract is paid for through your service charges and we want to ensure that you receive the high-quality service that you expect. We monitor our contractor’s performance closely and will hold them to account.

If you’re not happy with the service being provided, please:

Or if you’d like to tell us about something the contractor are doing well, please contact us

Clean and Green survey

To help improve levels of customer satisfaction with our grounds maintenance and communal cleaning services, we are carrying out quarterly customer surveys and using the results to robustly manage contractor performance.

If you receive an SMS text with a link to the survey please do take a moment to respond. All feedback is welcome and will be used to monitor and improve services. 

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