Decision details

To seek approval for an increase in the Grounds Maintenance Service annual revenue budget in order to maintain the Council’s current standards of publicly owned soft landscaped areas across the Borough.

A Highway grass, shrub and hedge maintenance agency agreement between Fareham Borough Council and Hampshire County Council has been in operation since 2004.

The agreement has allowed Fareham Borough Council to maintain a uniform standard of maintenance to soft landscaped areas across the Borough’s publicly adopted open space areas, irrespective of authority ownership.

Under the current agreement a range of formulae are used to calculate the fees paid to Fareham Borough Council for grounds maintenance work based on the costs incurred by the Council in undertaking the maintenance of the adopted highway areas.

In the financial year 2016-17, the revenue funding received by Fareham Borough Council from the County for undertaking this agency work is £164,500.The cost to Fareham Borough Council for actually undertaking the work is £263,500 and therefore, the shortfall of £99,000 is made up by Fareham Borough Council to ensure an acceptable standard of maintenance is carried out to the Highway grass areas.

As part of a wide ranging efficiency plan, the existing agency agreement was terminated with 12 months’ notice given by Hampshire County Council in March 2016 with a view to agreeing new arrangements for the 2017/18 financial year.

There is an option for Fareham to hand back the maintenance of the Borough’s Highway areas to the County Council so that it can be included in the new contractual arrangements. However, the specification is considerably reduced from the current standard provided by Fareham Borough Council’s Grounds Maintenance team and it is anticipated that the majority of residents would not support this proposal that would result in a significant deterioration in the aesthetic appearance of the Borough.

The Council has an option to retain the existing work arrangements. However, Hampshire County Council is proposing to reduce the amount of funding for any new agency agreement with Fareham Borough Council by approximately 9%. This proposal will reduce the County Council funding to an anticipated £150,000 per annum.

In addition to the reduced income, the new agreement is likely to impose additional demands on the Council to cover the cost of operational items such as traffic management and introduce the possibility of night time working for motorway junction operations. The cost of these additional demands is estimated to be approximately £5,000 per annum.  

In order to continue the agency agreement in its current form, Fareham Borough Council would need to increase the current subsidy of £99,000 to £119,000. An increase of approximately £20,000 per annum.

RESOLVED that the Executive approves the increase in annual revenue budget required to allow grounds maintenance standards to be maintained at the current level across the Borough.