Dublin City Council to stop cutting grass verges in effort to encourage biodiversity

Mowing of grass verges to achieve “manicured margins” will not be undertaken by Dublin City Council, with residents’ groups also discouraged from presenting of grass clippings for collection.

The council has said it is no longer cutting grass verges beside footpaths, to encourage biodiversity, and it is urging residents not to collect grass, if they cut it themselves, and present bags for collection on “rare” occasions only.

The council’s parks and landscape division said it “will only be maintaining open spaces/greens and will not be cutting grass margins in residential estates”. This it said was “in accordance with a more sustainable policy with regard to amenity grass maintenance to support the establishment of wildflower rich swards”.

Residents who wish to “maintain a more manicured margin” on the public paths “can do so”, the council said. However, only city council compostable bags should be used to collect clippings and bags will only be collected with “prior engagement with waste management staff and the local public domain teams”, and only when “resources are available at times agreed between the resident committee’s and waste management staff”.

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It cautioned that collection and presentation of grass should “only be carried out on rare occasions” and residents must not use the service to cut “large green spaces”, many of which have deliberately been left as meadows by the council. Residents who attempted to use this service for their own garden waste will be regarded as illegal dumpers, the council said, and could be subject to a €150 fine.

The council also said it was its preference, if residents did cut grass verges, they not pick up the clippings at all, “to allow for return of valuable nutrients like nitrogen back into the soil”.

Councillors from all parts of the city have raised concerns about the policy. Fianna Fáil councillor Racheal Batten said it was an “absolute shocking disgrace” residents who were giving their own time would have to deal with such bureaucratic hurdles to have bags collected.

“I think the attitude is absolutely atrocious. We have residents who are working to make the community better and we’re making it more difficult for them.”

She said these were services traditionally provided by the council. “The idea of reducing services and using the excuse of biodiversity doesn’t fly with me and it doesn’t fly residents.”

Local debate over the fate of roadside verges has broken out across the country over the past decade, with a “pollinator award” introduced to the national Tidy Towns competition and an All-Ireland pollinator plan in place across the island, leading to changes in council practices.

However, Fianna Fáil’s Claire O’Connor said there were a lot of people who didn’t want the verges cut and wanted to protect biodiversity. “I think from here on in we can’t speak always to the fact that there’s majority that want them cut, we have to be very open-minded that there’s a change in the discourse and the debate here very fundamentally.”