From new planting to tackling weeds, our small team is busy getting the village ready for 2025.
New Planting for 2025
In July we updated our planting scheme and started work on a new approach for 2025.
The new scheme is based on the cottage garden and pastel style that has been successful at the war memorial and community pub over the last few years and has been enjoyed by residents and visitors to the village.
Our part time staff worked through the autumn to dig out existing planting, improve the soil and install new plants and bulbs. We are also grateful to Tollerton resident Ian Kershaw for the support and machinery that he provided to help prepare the new flower beds.
We expect the new plants to take a few years to mature and become fully established but residents should see the first signs of the new scheme in 2025.
Our Lengthsman Kevin will be looking after these throughout the year, dead heading, replacing any plants that fail and filling any gaps in the planting. Later in the year we will add more bulbs ready for next spring.
Maintenance planned for 2025
Along with planting the Parish Council has reviewed maintenance for 2025. Maintenance of pavements is a principal council responsibility but the Parish Council regularly tops up this service to look after the village for residents.
With support from the County Council we employ a lengthsman. We also directly contract for additional services such as grass cutting, pavement cleaning and have employed casual staff to assist with a range of tasks – including creating summer jobs in 2024.
This year the Parish Council has agreed five key maintenance actions that residents can expect to see in the early part of the year:
- Treatment of weeds around the village – working with a small local contractor, a one off treatment will be applied in March to get on top of existing weeds across the whole village. Over a few weeks weeds will start to yellow and this will penetrate the roots of the plants to stop them growing back
- Treatment of moss – our contractor will use bicarbonate of soda / baking powder to treat the moss growing on the pavement that makes it slippery in wet conditions – particularly on those sections of pavement that get the least sunlight. This typically takes 24-48 hours to be effective and can be washed away with water.
- Mechanical weeding – last year we employed temporary staff to hand remove weeds, it was hard work and slow progress. For 2025 we have ordered a new machine to remove weeds and the soil in the cracks of the pavement that weeds grow in. We’ll start to use this once the weed treatment has had chance to penetrate the roots of existing weeds.
- Hand weeding and mulching – the new flower beds in the village will be hand weeded and mulched – this means adding a layer of compost which will both reduce the amount of weeding needed and feed the plants helping them to get established.
- Cleaning of paving in the Village Centre – last year we brought in a local contractor to spray clean the war memorial and the previous year we employed local residents to clean the hard surfaces at the Open Space. It’s some years since the paving in the village centre was cleaned and we’ll book this job in for Spring 2025 to brighten up the village centre.
Whilst desirable to avoid spraying weeds, there are limited alternative products that we are permitted to use on the highway and attempts to weed by hand last year quickly exceeded the amount of resource that a village parish council can provide.
The Parish Council hopes that the balance between treatment and mechanical weeding will protect and enhance the environment for both residents and wildlife and this will be kept under review throughout the year.
Other improvements
We’ve also recently filled pot holes along the access to the Open Space and the Parish Council are replacing the most worn litter and grit bins around the village.
Find out more about the work of the Parish Council:
- The Parish Plan
- Progress delivering the Parish Plan and priorities for 2025/26