How we look after our greenspace

We work hard with many partners to ensure our parks and open spaces are looking great all year round.

Our greenspace management contract includes the upkeep of:

  • parks
  • cemeteries
  • repairs and maintenance to our play areas
  • the supply of beautiful plants for our bedding displays

Roadside verges

Roadside verges are looked after by West Sussex County Council.

Grounds

Most of our grounds maintenance is carried out by Tivoli Group Ltd.

Tivoli carry out a wide variety of maintenance tasks including:

  • grass cutting
  • litter collection
  • shrub pruning
  • hedge cutting
  • various sports pitch maintenance
  • bedding display planting and maintenance
  • grave digging
  • wildflower meadow sowing and maintenance
  • leaf clearance

Our community parks officers monitor the standards of the maintenance carried out and regularly speak with Tivoli to ensure that they meet the terms of their contract.

We recognise the need to help address the national decline in biodiversity and undertake various initiatives to improve our parks from the perspective of habitat enhancement. For example, some grass areas in our parks are deliberately left long to benefit insect and small mammal populations between April-July and such areas may include valuable and rare wildflowers such as orchids.

Shrub and hedge pruning is typically undertaken in winter months to avoid disturbing nesting birds. However, where there are access issues we will undertake pruning as and when necessary.

Play areas

All play areas owned by us are also covered by the maintenance contract we have with Tivoli Group Ltd. They respond to repairs and maintenance issues within our play areas on a daily basis.

Cemeteries

Our greenspace contractor Tivoli maintain the grounds of our 5 cemeteries as well as the following closed churchyards;

  • St James, East Ham Rd, Littlehampton, BN17 7AN
  • St John the Baptist, A24 by-pass, Findon, BN14 0RF
  • St Mary, Church Street, Littlehampton, BN17 5EN
  • St Mary, Vicarage Lane, East Preston, Littlehampton, BN16 2SP
  • St Mary Magdalene, Bersted Street, Bognor Regis, PO22 9QE
  • St Nicholas, Elmer Rd, Middleton-on-sea, Bognor Regis, PO22 6ET
  • St Nicholas, London Road, Arundel, BN18 QAT

Some areas of our cemeteries may be left for habitat conservation which means you may see areas of long grass or wildflower meadows. Where this maintenance regime affects your access to a grave then we shall make sure it is accessible within 24 hours.

Hedge and shrub pruning typically takes place between October to March.

Our grounds maintenance staff are asked to ensure that the cemeteries regulations are enforced therefore some items placed on graves which do not comply may be removed without warning.