Grass and grass cutting

The council has a team of staff that looks after the maintenance of our grassed areas around the city.

We also look after some areas by agreement with YHN and Open Spaces.

Our grass cutting and weed maintenance programme in Newcastle is:

• The majority of grass in residential areas will be cut on eight occasions (once a month) during the grass cutting season. This is typically between March and October, or April to November depending on weather conditions.
• Formal sports facilities are cut 12 times per year and the bigger parks that more people use (Ouseburn, Leazes, Walker, Exhibition, Tyne Riverside and Elswick) will be cut between eight and 10 times per year.
• Some sloped areas will not be cut.
• Grassed areas which contain spring bulbs will remain uncut until eight weeks after the end of the flowering period.
• We do not collect grass clippings, but as grass will be longer when it is cut this will be more noticeable. We will work to minimise the impact of any clippings on the pavement.

The council has a commitment to bio-diversity to protect habitats and species in Newcastle. Our grass cutting arrangements in many parts of the city will help these local habitats. We will also reduce the amount of weed killer used in a number of areas to further support this commitment.

We participate in No Mow May on Urban Green Newcastle sites, and our wildflower verges will also not be cut in May. We are currently reviewing grass cutting across the city to try to expand the areas where we can reduce the number of cuts to support and increase biodiversity, as areas are assessed and identified there will be updates provided.

We planted 104,000 bulbs across all wards last year and have committed to planting the same numbers in 2024 to 2025.

We have had wildflower verge trials ongoing across the city for the past few years and these areas are cut less to encourage biodiversity, we purchased a specialist vehicle to support our wildflower areas to demonstrate our commitment to continuously increasing the amount of biodiversity areas across the city. 

The three main benefits that we hope to see from our trial plots are:

• biodiversity gain – by reducing the number of cuts and removing the cuttings to reduce soil fertility we will create the foundation for an ecosystem to exist where previously it did not. The resulting increase in wildflowers will attract greater numbers of insects which in turn supports birds and other wildlife.
• reduction in maintenance costs – the verges will only be cut three times a year, possibly reducing to twice in future years thus saving money which can be spent elsewhere. This reduction in the use of mowing machines also contributes to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and helps the city towards achieving it’s net zero target.
• safety – the reduction in maintenance means less need for mowing machine operators to be working in potentially hazardous situations alongside high-speed roads.

The growth of wildflowers in the trial areas has not been as successful as we had hoped, so this year we will be over sowing the areas with a range of wildflower seeds to encourage growth of pollinators, hopefully these will have a real impact on biodiversity and allow us to demonstrate to residents what is possible if we reduce grass cutting in certain areas and encourage wildflowers.