It's a super busy time of year for us.
Up and down the country, our tractors, Unimog and various pieces of kit are out on the verges or landscaped areas, undertaking grass-cutting and cyclical activities.
In many instances, our vehicles work round the clock, with one team working daytime and then a new team coming in to crew the night time operations. In the South East, our daytime team are working with our tractor and an impact protection vehicle unit behind, cutting a 2m wide amenity cut of all highway verges across the whole Area 4 network to ensure the strip remains unobstructed by vegetation throughout the year.
Along the M11, we've been using our Unimog and operator plus a strimming crew of two to maintain and preserve sight lines and stopping distance, including junctions, access points, curves & bends. As well as maintaining and preserving road users’ visibility of road traffic signs and signals and undertaking a 2m wide amenity cut of the motorway verges.
In the London area, our teams have been keeping on top of the sports pitches to ensure the grass is the correct length for cricket, rounders and athletics.
Up in the North, we've had teams working across the region to keep the verges mowed and tidy.
In the South West, we've been using our barrier mower, angled to work either side of the barrier. Its level of accuracy depends on the barrier it's working around, but it certainly reduces the time needed for the subsequent strimmer crew, who have a much easier tidy-up. It's unusual that we get such a large safety zone to carry out planned maintenance, but on this occasion a double width hard shoulder was present giving a more than adequate safety zone to allow for manoeuvrability.
Have you seen any of our crews out and about?
