It was a pleasure to be invited back to Hightown Housing’s Resident Engagement events in August. These were our first resident engagement events following the pandemic and it was great to be back meeting with the residents and receiving such positive feedback regarding our grounds maintenance service. The Hightown Hedgehogs were also reintroduced and are settling in well in their new homes!

From the 1st October we are now maintaining the grounds for Essex County Fire and Rescue Service. With over 50 sites throughout Essex, we are delighted to be working with another one of our emergency services.

Due to our growing number of contracts and new sites, we have added another three vehicles to our fleet. We took delivery last week of another tipper van and two transits. They had barely been in our yard 24 hours, when our sign writer had them badged up and they are now out and about earning their keep!

It has never been more important for businesses to step up and take account of the environmental impact associated with their operations.

So, in March 2022, we instructed Carbon Neutral Britain carbonneutralbritain.org to help quantify and calculate our carbon output from 2021.

Upon receipt of their report, we offset our total carbon emissions from 2021 through internationally certified carbon offsetting projects, becoming certified as a Carbon Neutral Business by Carbon Neutral Britain.

Their report provides a great insight and will be used each year to provide a roadmap for reducing our carbon emissions to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, if not sooner.

The report highlighted the main carbon emitting aspects of our business were from our fleet of predominantly diesel works vehicles, and from petrol grounds maintenance machinery. These account for over 86% of our carbon output.

To reduce this, during the past 2 years, we have increased our investment in commercial battery powered machinery, all-electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles and will continue to do so over the coming years.

Larger commercial vehicles are slowly being introduced to the market and we regularly assess their viability and attend trade shows to keep abreast of any new commercial EV innovations and products.

Carbon Neutral Britain will continue to complete an annual calculation of our environmental impact and emissions, in order for us to continue offsetting and maintaining our carbon neutral status.

Click here to view our Carbon Neutral Certification.

Click here to view our Carbon Offset Certification.

Our service teams are busy carrying out landscape improvement works to clients’ sites in readiness for the new growing season.

On this site our plant selection was:

Euonymus – low maintenance, hardy, and great for ground cover

Lavender – scented, low maintenance, hardy and loved by the bees

Cornus – gives seasonal interest and colour, low maintenance and hardy.  

Following planting we spread composted bark mulch over the shrub borders which is effective in supressing weeds and reduces the need for chemical herbicide.  It also provides nutrients to the soil and aids soil moisture control to improve the health of plants and their resilience to drought, pests, and disease.

Several Mark Walker GM staff volunteered along with other local businesses, to collect over 1500 Christmas trees from the local community, on a cold and wet weekend at the start of the new year.

In return for a donation to Isabel Hospice, 1435 local residents booked on-line for their spent Christmas tree to be collected and recycled, helping raise a staggering £31,000 for the Welwyn Garden City based charity.

This is the second year that we have helped Isabel Hospice with this fundraising event which was a huge success and lots of fun!

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We are extremely proud to receive the “Sub-Contractor of The Year 2021” award from our client, Skanska.

This award recognised our staff’s hard work and dedication to not only the regular grounds maintenance that we provide Skanska but also for various landscaping projects.

We have been awarded a contract for the provision of grounds maintenance for 4 schools (spread across 5 sites) in Essex for our existing client, Skanska, commencing January 2022.

As well as general grounds maintenance, our service provision will also include sports pitch maintenance and markings, All Weather Pitch maintenance, tree maintenance, gritting and snow clearance.