Environmental Services

Our Environmental Services team work to help make your area a nicer place to live and spend time. The team, and approved contractors:

• Keep communal gardens tidy and looked after.
• Cut the grass on spaces we own. Manchester City Council also cut the grass on spaces they own.
• Return the gardens of empty homes to a condition new residents can keep tidy.
• Take care of the 14,000 trees we own. Most of them are in the gardens, or communal areas around the houses and buildings we own. Manchester City Council also look after the trees they own. Most of these are on open spaces, grass verges and in woodlands.
• Manage the fencing work plan. This is work on fences that need two or more posts and panels.
• Look after paths that don’t belong to us, or anyone (unadopted), but need keeping tidy.
• Look after assisted gardens and general areas like walkways and garage sites.
• Take care of the grass, trees, hedges and bushes in play areas we own. Manchester City Council look after the play equipment and safety surfaces.
• Keep the brook that runs through Woodhouse Park and Benchill flowing.
• Clean and check over 330 communal areas in our buildings.
• Work with Manchester City Council and Biffa to get rid of dumped rubbish.

Value for money

We want to make sure we give value to money to residents who pay rent and service charges. Last year, our resident-based Scrutiny Group reviewed our environmental services. They found how we work out service charges is fair.

Communicating better

To help you understand our services more, we’re looking at ways to communicate better. If you have any questions or ideas, please let us know.

Rubbish and waste

Last year, our repairs and maintenance services created 209 tonnes of rubbish and waste. This is about the same weight as 140 VW Beetle cars. We separate and sort as much as we can on site and recycle as much as possible. This helps our carbon reduction aim and keeps costs for handling waste as low as possible.

We keep some items separate because of what they're made from. Usually, old household furniture treated with flame retardant materials. We follow all the rules to make sure we process these items safely.

Weed killing and spraying

Weeds can make an area look messy and untidy but spraying them with weed killer can be bad for the environment. There are areas that need more spraying than others, and weed killer works better at different times of the year. Some councils have reduced their weed spraying to once a year. We’re looking to find the balance between spraying too much and not enough.

Let us know how we're doing

We want residents to give us feedback, the good and the not so good. It helps us know how we’re doing and what we can make better and easier. Find out how to contact us, by email, phone or visiting us.