Rotorua’s overgrown berms and reserves have been cut back as mowing back on track

Te Ngae Rd berm on council land has been mowed. Photo / Andrew Warner

Overgrown berms and reserves have been curbed as council contractors get the mowing schedule back on track.

Rotorua Lakes Council has blamed wet weather for the hold-ups in the mowing schedule. In a statement, it said the mowing schedule was now 99 per cent caught up.

It acknowledged it had been a hot topic of late and said it will now revert to its usual schedule with most areas to get mowed every four and a half weeks, instead of the six weeks it had been working to recently.

Councillor Don Patterson highlighted the issue at a council meeting last week, saying the paths, footpaths berms, parks and reserves were not being maintained properly.

He said InfraCore, a council-controlled organisation that delivered essential services to the city, was struggling with staff and were down by 18 before Christmas.

Tracey McLeod used her own equipment to mow and weed-eat a berm on Pererika St. Photo / Supplied

In the same meeting, councillors discussed how would be best to tackle its forecast deficit of $5.6 million, and cutting back on mowing services was one of the possibilities.

In a response to Local Democracy Reporting, InfraCore chief executive Emma Murray said, as with most other businesses at the moment, it had a number of vacancies.

“There is a labour shortage nationwide.”

She did not respond to the question as to whether low staff numbers had impacted its services or whether it was an ongoing issue.

Old Te Ngae Rd berm has not yet been mowed. Photo / Andrew Warner

She said there was no discontent among staff and management and InfraCore continued to work with staff to receive feedback, and act on it. It also recently undertook an engagement survey.

It had 14 jobs listed on Seek as of Friday.

She would not comment further. This included to a question on what its numbers were when fully staffed, in general, and for the mowing team.

Rotorua Lakes Council community wellbeing deputy chief executive Anaru Pewhairangi previously told the Rotorua Daily Post that additional staff had been employed by InfraCore part-time to assist with the mowing schedule over the busy summer period.

Rotorua District Residents and Ratepayers and Restore Rotorua member Tracey McLeod had spent recent days mowing overgrown grass herself.

Tracey McLeod had been out mowing overgrown grass on council land. Photo / Andrew Warner.

Having heard the news the mowing was back on track, she said she had seen workers out doing it.

“They’ve been really active the last few days.”

InfraCore mows 327 reserves and other areas in the district, and the total mowing area is made up of 450 hectares of grass, which is equivalent to 562 Rotorua Stadium sports fields.

In a council statement this week, Rotorua mayor Tania Tapsell said she appreciated the community’s responsiveness to the mowing programme.

“It’s positive our contractors have been able to catch up on the mowing despite the crazy weather we’ve had.

“We’ll keep working hard to ensure our district is up to a standard we can be proud of.”

During last week’s meeting, Tapsell responded to some councillors’ concerns about the possibility of cutting core services by saying, “unfortunately, things like mowing just won’t be able to be done. That’s just one of many examples.”

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