Highland Council cuts to improve appearance of Badenoch and Strathspey’s towns and villages… but how?

Residents in Badenoch and Strathspey should start to see an improvement in the upkeep of communal land in their towns and villages in the coming months.

Highland Council is increasing spending and will be delivering the same level of service for grasscutting, strimming and other grounds maintenance that it did in 2022 after ‘issues’ last year.

There has been irritation and frustration over how unkempt some parts of local communities have become at times.

Indeed some communities have taken matters into their own hands as they have been so disappointed by establishing their own groups such as the Aviemore Path Pirates.

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Watch out… there be pirates about in Aviemore!

The local authority is also to increase areas of rewilding - although one Badenoch and Strathspey Highland councillor pointed out that opinions on this could vary when an update was provided at the latest local area committee in Kingussie’s Courthouse.

The amount of money for grounds maintenance in the strath for 2024/25 was £207,100 but this year’s final figure is yet to be confirmed.

An additional £450,000 will be invested into grass cutting operations Highland-wide for 2025/26 due to ‘the issues identified during the 2024 season’.

This is in addition to a decision by the council to revert to the funding level from 2022 - £807,500 for grass cutting and £159,300 for weed control - for the region.

Debbie Sutton, the council’s strategic lead for community operations and logistics told the meeting: “Because of this increased funding we are able to reinstate the 2022 service standards allowing for more regular strimming, mowing and chemical weed control.

“The additional budget will also fund more seasonal workers who will be able to stay for an additional month into November and to continue the strimming, mowing and weed control where permitted.

“The plan is to maintain the existing rewilding areas and hopefully to expand them through a structured programme of rewilding helping to achieve the council’s net zero goals by reducing cutting and creating wildlife corridors and also concentrating on path maintenance and larger green spaces.”

Local Highland councillor Muriel Cockburn (SNP) said: “I think it would be helpful to work with the local community groups and not lose the volunteers that we have got as partnership working is certainly the way forward.”

Councillor Russell Jones (Independent), area committee chairman, said it was imperative that areas for rewilding are agreed in advance by the local communities.

He observed: “Sometimes communities have a different idea of whether they want areas to be rewilded or kept as grass areas.”

Officials confirmed they would ‘absolutely’ discuss such plans with the community first.

There is currently one amenity officer, one foreperson and eight community works operatives for the strath.

Seasonal workers supplement the full-time workforce to help grass cutting operations from March to October.

However, their numbers has been slashed over the years although in the strath they have remained the same.

Three seasonal staff have continued to be employed whereas Inverness has seen a fall from 27 in 2018 to just 11 last year.

Numbers across the region have been cut from 83 in 2018 - when grass cutting was brought back in-house by Highland Council - to only 46 last year.

The amount of grass maintained by the council is 63,504 square metres of high amenity; 229,291 square metres of general amenity, 27,957 square metres of low amenity and 22,504 square metres of set aside - giving a grand total of 343,256 square metres.

The council’s amenities team is responsible for over 8.8 million square metres of grass across the Highlands.

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