Sheffield council has been urged to ‘get its house in order’ after concerns were raised over damaged and muddy grass verges – which councillors claim was caused by the authority’s own vans at yesterday’s north east area committee meeting.
Grass verges are areas of grass and vegetation alongside roads, which are illegal to park on according to a Sheffield by-law.
Speaking at North East Area committee meeting at Sheffield Town Hall yesterday, Councillor Garry Weatherall, Shiregreen and Brightside ward, said: “It’s our own vans that’s doing it, they’re churning up the grass verges, they don’t care.
“If we can’t even have our own transport fleet not parking on grass verges, why would the public do it? We need to get our own house in order first.”
Contractor Amey is responsible for maintaining 2.8 million square metres of grass verges on behalf of the council according to a 2023 report before the committee.
Coun Jayne Dunn, Southey ward, speaking on behalf of a concerned local, said: “We have a lot of problems with people parking on grass verges, especially when the weather is like it is, they get extremely churned up.
“The teams have been great and they have gone out and reseeded, yet 24 hours later somebody went and did exactly the same again.”
Coun Fran Belbin, Firth Park ward, suggested looking into adding plastic meshes to some verges to reduce the churning they face when vehicles do park on them.
Coun Belbin added: “Some of our roads are so narrow that people do have to park on the verge in order to allow emergency vehicles and so on to get through.”
Under the current by-law, vehicles parked on verges can only be prosecuted if there are signs in place, the offence was observed, and the driver was contacted at the time of the offence.
Coun Mark Rusling, Shiregreen and Brightside ward, said: “There are plenty of people from our agencies and from the council who are out and about in communities who can’t do anything about this because they don’t have the enforcement powers.”
Coun Weatherall added: “I think we need our park enforcement to have a policy where if you park on a grass verge in Sheffield you’re going to get fined £100, straight away.
“All we need is a camera and then to send a letter two or three days later.”