Issue details

To temporarily cease the supply of baskets and troughs that decorate Guildford town centre between the months of June to October for 2024 and 2025.

Guildford’s baskets and troughs are designed, grown from plugs, and maintained by the Council’s Parks Service. They are grown at the Parks Services’ depot and installed in the High Street and North Street, with large troughs installed on railings around the town centre. In total, the town has 274 baskets and troughs. They are fed and watered for the duration of the summer by the Parks Service, usually for four to five months of the year between June and October, subject to weather conditions.

Around 12% of the basket and trough costs are sponsored and the remaining costs are paid from the Park’s Service in the form of staff resource, watering vehicle and materials.

The Council’s financial position has led to efforts to find savings and in temporarily ceasing the work involved in supplying our baskets and troughs, we can save the cost of the materials and, more significantly, we can save the cost of maintaining them.

The plants for the baskets and troughs would have to be ordered in October to allow time to grow the plants for 2024.

If sponsorship is possible, it would be best explored during the pause in the provision of floral displays, to allow time for any scheme to be properly developed.

A reduced provision of floral displays has been considered but would yield only marginal savings as the primary cost is staff time which cannot be incrementally scaled back, and for this reason a full pause in provision is recommended to achieve savings.