We have kept you informed in our earlier updates about the landscape maintenance issues we have been having and we are now very pleased to report that a new contractor has been appointed.
We considered five quotes, not only on the basis of cost, but also upon our assessment of the capabilities and potential reliability of each of the businesses. We would have liked to have chosen a business from this area; however, we found that the only local ones with spare capacity were quite small and we felt that we did not wish to go down that route again, reflecting upon what happened the last time!
A reliable source introduced us to Countrywide Grounds Maintenance Ltd and it’s a pretty substantial business as you’ll gather from their website which is linked here. You’ll also see that they have a very broad range of clients, large and small. They operate from 46 regional locations (our particular region is based in Crawley) and around the UK they employ almost 700 people. Turnover for the whole group for the last financial year amounted to some £40,000,000.
Countrywide has set out an annual plan for keeping Little Meadow up to the standard we would all like to see and so in the spring/summer growing season they will visit every week, but much less frequently during the winter months. The cost to LMC is more than we have been paying but part of that uplift is due to the fact that there was no VAT to pay before. We’re pretty confident it’ll be worth it.
You’ll undoubtedly soon see Countrywide’s trucks and uniformed staff around the estate. They start tomorrow, Wednesday 7th August, and in the coming months they will be gradually catching up with everything that’s fallen behind.
As always the directors would welcome your feedback and ideas, please just use the contact form.