Spring Clean campaign highlights challenges of maintaining the borough’s parks and greenspaces

Stockport Council, as part of their Spring Clean campaign, are highlighting some of the work and challenges faced on a daily, including keeping the boroughs’ parks and greenspaces safe and clean.

The campaign launched on 1 March and will run until the end of April, with daily social media posts giving an insight into cleaning and maintenance and the effects of anti-social behaviour such as fly-tipping and graffiti, on the environment.

A huge amount of effort goes into keeping the borough’s parks shipshape, with teams out every day emptying bins and clearing waste. By the end of March, necessary winter works will have been completed and the teams will then start mowing the borough’s many parks and greenspaces. The play areas are subject to a regular inspection regime with constant repairs and improvements being made to keep things exciting and safe for younger park visitors. As well as this, bowling greens and sports pitches are regularly maintained and have benefitted from continued investment and renovation work.

Mark Glynn, Director of Place Management, said: “Keeping our much-loved parks and greenspaces well maintained is a huge undertaking. We are very lucky to have active “Friends Of” groups in most of our parks and their fantastic efforts in helping to maintain them and make continual improvements, is a huge help and a real asset to the borough. I hope this campaign has highlighted some of the challenges we are faced with on a daily basis and the work that goes into making Stockport such a great place for residents and visitor to enjoy.”

As well as this, the Council also has to tackle anti-social behaviour such as fly-tipping and graffiti. Acts like these are not only time consuming to clean up, they are also very costly and cost the Council hundreds of thousands of pounds every year. They also divert much needed resources from other routine maintenance, for example, street sweeping.

You can help us to help you, by taking your litter home or find a bin and report any issues to the Council straight away. This can be reported via our website or why not consider volunteering or helping out in one of Stockport’s many parks to really make a difference?