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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\u2019s north east area committee meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grass verges are areas of grass and vegetation alongside roads, which are illegal to park on according to a Sheffield by-law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“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.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The teams have been great and they have gone out and reseeded, yet 24 hours later somebody went and did exactly the same again.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n