Grass Cutting in the Fast Lane
As gardeners across Dumfries and Galloway prepare for peak grass cutting season, spare a thought for Scotland TranServ’s Cyclic Maintenance teams.
Our crews maintain over 25 million square metres (25,000,000m2) of verges, the equivalent of 3500 times the size of the pitch at the Maracana World Cup Final Stadium in Brazil or 27,700 times the size of Centre Court at Wimbledon.
Malcolm Shanks, Scotland TranServ’s Operations Manager said:
“Our teams are out in mostly all conditions keeping hundreds of miles of trunk road verges clean and tidy, not only cutting the grass but picking up litter, clearing drains and cleaning our road signs. These verges are cut in varying degrees 
of frequency ranging from three times per year up to 14 times a year.
“While the standard of groundsmanship required isn’t quite up to that of the National Stadium or Centre Court, it’s still a massive area of grass to be cut. And, our teams are working with just the hard shoulder between them and cars, buses and heavy goods vehicles whizzing past at around 70mph.”
This first year of the contract has been a testing time as we undertook much needed maintenance work on the network. Among that work was the cleaning of around 26,000 road gullies as well as 46km of channel drains, enough to stretch from Dumfries to Carlisle. As a further part of this cleaning project our teams were tasked with lifting 14,000 manholes, the equivalent of lifting more than 400 double decker buses.
Our maintenance efforts have taken a new emphasis to those of our predecessors, looking to innovation and efficiency to improve our service to drivers across the region. We are replacing ageing lighting with new energy efficient LED equivalents, reducing power bills, and our carbon footprint. We have increased efforts to clean signs and overhead gantries with more than 2000 structures now being cleaned twice a year.
Russell Rennie, Scotland TranServ’s Contract Director added:
“Scotland TranServ is playing its part, during this most important year of tourism to ensure we create a positive first impression for visitors to Scotland. Our role is vital in supporting the economic growth and development of the south west, the gateway to Scotland and in providing a safe driving environment for our motorists, as free from obstructions and potential hazards as possible.
“On behalf of Transport Scotland, we’re playing our part to keep our motorway verges neat and tidy. Our teams work close to fast moving traffic, and their safety is a priority. We would ask drivers to play their part in supporting these cyclic maintenance crews and keep litter in the car – bag it, bin it, take it home!”
