A day in the life of an Environmental Services Operative in our Neighbourhood Care team

Our Neighbourhood Care team is responsible for cutting the grass near you, cleaning your block, checking that trees aren’t going to cause any danger, and generally making sure that your neighbourhoods are neat and tidy. Over the next few weeks we’re going to go behind the scenes and get to know members of our Neighbourhood Care team a bit better to find out more about what they do.

This week we hear from Adam, an Environmental Services Operative in our Neighbourhood Care team, who’s been with us for almost three years. Here he talks grass cutting, the good old British weather and training opportunities as he takes us through a typical day at work.

My typical day…

My role is all about maintaining the green spaces in our neighbourhoods, come rain, wind or shine. First thing every morning I report to our depot in Lees to pick up the equipment I’ll need for the day’s work. I make sure that my van, trailer and equipment are safe to be taken on the road and ready for use before I make my way to site.

Our Grounds Maintenance team looks after the communal spaces in 35 areas across Oldham, so it’s a busy job as you can imagine. We don’t work on private gardens but we do clear rubbish from our shared grassed areas, cut grass and hedges, prune shrubs and treat weeds to make sure our neighbourhoods are great places for our customers to live.

Our work tends to be seasonal and often is dependent on the weather. At this time of year our team is mainly cutting and strimming grass in communal areas. We don't collect grass cuttings but we do blow them away from properties, and footpaths are swept clear of any grass after every cut.

I’m often asked by customers why we don’t remove the grass cuttings. The honest answer is if we did, we’d need more equipment and labour and we’d have to pay high costs to dispose of the cuttings at landfill sites meaning our customers’ service charge would increase. We think that the current service keeps our neighbourhoods looking great, plus the clippings release nutrients into the growing grass, which is a consideration.

Ordinarily we cut grass on a two week rolling schedule and we do our best to keep to this but we can’t cut grass when the weather and ground conditions are wet unfortunately. At the moment due to coronavirus and the safety measures we’ve had to implement, we’re now cutting the grass every four to five weeks. You can see when we’ll be cutting the grass near you in the schedule on our website. We’re monitoring government safety advice and when we can, we’ll resume our regular service – thanks for bearing with us.

Our grass cutting season usually runs from the end of March right through to October, after which time we start our winter maintenance programme. Then we’re busy with jobs like edging lawns, pathways, removing moss to minimise slips and trips, trimming hedges, and generally tidying up the communal areas in our neighbourhoods.  

No two days are ever the same, which is one of the perks of the job for me and we like to try new things. Among the feedback we’ve had from customers recently is that they want to see some nature friendly zones in our neighbourhoods. We’ve identified some areas that will be suitable for this and we hope to trial them at the end of this year’s grass cutting season and during next year’s, so watch this space!

Best part of the job?

There’s two things, really. First, the satisfaction of making our neighbourhoods look their best for our customers – that’s really important to me.  

Second is the amount of training and development I’ve been put through, it’s unreal - from equipment refreshers to getting my trailer license. I’ve never known any organisation put their staff through as much training as FCHO does, and it’s absolutely fantastic.

Worst part of the job?

The great British weather, especially here in Greater Manchester! I know it comes with the territory but when it’s bouncing down with rain, it can be tough going.

What do you like to do when you’re not at work?

I love spending time with my family and I’m also a big football fan – playing and watching it :) 

If you weren’t doing this job, what would you be doing?

I’d probably be a car mechanic. That was the career path I was on when I left school and I’m NVQ level 2 qualified in motor mechanics, but I moved into grounds maintenance work when I wanted a change from working in the same place all the time. I loved it and the rest is history.

To find out more about our gardening services and standards, visit the caretaking and grounds maintenance page of our website.