Cutting through a wet, rainy year drives government mowing in Canberra up 43%

Transport Canberra and City Services will review the mowing program this financial year to look for improvements, as the combination of wet and warm conditions again lead to strong grass growth.

The ACT government has signalled it would consider another round of additional funding for the program if La Nina conditions again leave it running behind.

The directorate's annual report said city services mowed 42,075 hectares of land in 2020-21, up from roughly 29,248 hectares in 2019-20.

"The annual grass mowing program normally runs from September to March. In 2020 a La Nina climate event resulted in a significant increase in rainfall and rapid grass growth," the report said.

"In spring 2020 it had become evident that mowing suburbs every four weeks would be extremely challenging."

The executive branch manager of city presentation at Transport Canberra and City Services, Stephen Alegria, said the mowing program covered about 5000 hectares multiple times each year.

Mr Alegria said some areas could take weeks after heavy rainfall to dry out enough to allow mowers to get back out there safely.

"When the grass is actually wet, it's very difficult to mow, but even when it's dried out, if the soil's wet, often we can't get out there safely because the mowers will get bogged, or they'll slide around. So in some cases we have to wait until the soil itself is dried out to some degree, so it's quite site specific," he said.

"We try very hard to make up for that lost time. People will see mowers out in the evenings. They'll see them on weekends. Whenever we can, we'll try to make up for the lost days that we might get due to rainfall."

The mowing program received a $2.1 million funding boost in November 2020, which funded nine additional mowers in the peak mowing period alongside extra contracted resources.

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The Canberra Liberals called for more funding for the public mowing program late last month, but the government amended a Legislative Assembly motion to note record rainfall had curtailed the mowing program.

Mr Steel's amended motion instead said the government would endeavour to "continue to mow suburbs and areas of open space every four weeks, and arterial roads every five weeks during mowing season".

"Even with the significant number of rain-affected days when mowing could not occur and with the vigorous growth that we have seen, our teams are currently running a week or two behind schedule, which is pretty good when you consider the combined impact of the La Nina weather conditions and of the COVID-19 lockdown," Mr Steel said.

Mr Steel told the Assembly the government would consider more additional funding if required.

"We will continue to monitor the weather patterns that we are facing and, if it looks like additional surge funding may be needed, of course, we will consider that, just as we delivered during the last mowing season as well," he said last month.

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