REF:66-2106-189903 - Mowing around accommodation

Your comment: Please stop mowing the lawns around Pentre Jane Morgan so much. Surely it is unnecessary to destroy all the flowers that support pollinators every few weeks. We are in a biodiversity crisis and should be doing everything we can to help wildlife not mowing away sources of nectar. Plus, lawns full of wildflowers look far nicer than short grass and less disruption from people on mowers driving underneath my window would be highly appreciated. I would suggest management that maintains a strip of shorter mown lawn at the edges of paths for neatness, with longer wildflowers and grass in the middle that can be mown at the end of summer once the wildflowers are finished. This would be far greater for biodiversity.

Our response:

Many thanks for your comments and feedback regarding cutting the grass in Pentre Jane Morgan.

Regarding the noise, we do reduce the frequency of mowing during the exam period and make sure that no edge strimming happens during the quiet period.

Your comments and suggestions regarding protecting the wildflowers are much appreciated. – You may be aware from living at PJM that we have already taken steps in this direction with the introduction of the ‘Grass Wildlife Barrier’ around the perimeter of the site. (Please see map attached). This was implemented in 2019 with input from the students and it has worked well.

Taking this further by only cutting one width around the main lawn edges whilst maintaining the wildflowers in the middle is well worth considering – especially in some of the larger areas. Other areas are often used by residents for recreational purposes so maintaining a shorter cut here would still be appropriate and more practical.

Thank you again for your comments and we will look to review the wildlife barriers we already have in place and see if we can extend these further around the site.

If you would like to further discuss this please do not hesitate to contact us via email at accommodation@aber.ac.uk