‘If the council won’t do it, I’ll do it myself!’: Dad takes grass cutting into his own hands

A LOCAL man who took it upon himself to cut the grass at his local park has been praised by the Melksham community.

Frustrated with how overgrown it was, Craig Grant took his petrol lawnmower to his local park on Dorset Crescent and mowed the grass area.

Craig said, “There are  normally lots of children playing in the park, kicking a football around and just generally having fun but there was no way children could play on the grass with it at the length it was.

“We had a spell of great weather and the grass had grown quite a lot since the council had last been to cut it, but it needed cutting again and I couldn’t let it stay how it was for much longer. It’s unfair on the children, they shouldn’t have to suffer because the council can’t be bothered to spend ten minutes cutting it again, even if it isn’t scheduled in to be done at that time.

“I did it in stages and it took me six hours in total. It would have taken Wiltshire Council about ten minutes on one of their lawnmowers.

“I know I shouldn’t have to do it and it’s frustrating but it was for the kids and if I didn’t do it, who knows when it would have been done next? The children shouldn’t have to wait to play in their park, it should be accessible all the time. My children regularly use the park and they were disappointed they couldn’t play on the grass because it was so long.”

A member of the public took a photo of Craig mowing the grass and posted it on social media. Soon after, the post had been liked over 1,000 times, had 100 comments and had been shared 40 times.

“I didn’t expect this reaction,” said Craig. “A few people stopped to say ‘thank you’ whilst I was there, but the comments on Facebook have been really nice. People are very grateful and appreciative.”

Kelsa Richards on Facebook said, “Society needs more people like him. Thank you that man.”

Julie Lavery said, “Good on this chap for caring about his community.” Margaret Brooks added, “Well done. So nice that someone is giving up time for the children.”

Craig added, “I hope I don’t have to keep doing it because it costs a lot of money on fuel and takes a long time, but if it gets too long again and the council don’t come and cut it, then I will. My lawnmower is a bit old and rickety but it does the job!”

A Wiltshire Council spokesperson said, “We’d like to thank the resident who took the time to cut the grass in the play area at Dorset Crescent when it had grown quickly due to the recent warm and wet weather.

“At this time of year we cut grass once a month, however the recent weather caused some rapid grass growth so this has caused longer grass than usual on amenity areas and we’re sorry this caused inconvenience.  If there are any areas people think need more attention we’d recommend they send us a report via the My Wiltshire service and we’ll look into it.

“We are also happy to speak with any parish and town council, or community group that wish to provide any additional services to ours and there are already many examples of this working well across the county.”