Belfast City Council Young Street Tree Maintenance

Clive Richardson Limited have carried out the Young Street Tree Maintenance Contract for Belfast City Council since 2011. The contract covers the planting and maintenance of all young trees and the maintenance of soft landscaped areas, such as Parks open sites and car parks, in the care of Belfast City Council, the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) and the Department for Communities (DfC).

In the main the contract focuses on the upkeep of the trees and planted areas within Belfast. This includes planting or removing trees as required, ensuring that tree guards and stakes are in place, ensuring that tree pits are kept in good order and for pruning trees so that they do not cause a hazard to traffic or the public.

However, CRL are also instructed at times to carry out specialist one-off projects at various locations. These include repairs to ground after an event has taken place, landscaping, planting or general environmental improvement works to enhance a local community. Projects undertaken by CRL recently under the terms of this project include landscaping at Bloomfield Walkway; the re-turfing of City Hall lawns after the Christmas Market; the reinstatement of the Lawns at the Cenotaph after the ‘Shrouds of the Somme’ art installation, created by artist Rob Heard; and, landscaping at Orangefield Park.

CRL have a dedicated team of operatives who carry out the day to day management of over 11500 street trees under this contract to a pre-planned schedule or to emergency requests from the Council.

CRL’s performance in this contract is closely monitored and measured against three key KPI’s by BCC. As part of CRL’s contractual obligations, monthly reports are submitted to BCC detailing operational performance against these KPI’s. These KPI’s are:

• KPI 1 Delivery of a high quality service. This is measured in reports through audit and spot checks carried out on work undertaken. Works are graded against stringent standards. CRL are expected to achieve in excess of 94% of works to A or B standards.
• KPI 2 Maintain H&S Standards. Achieved through the preparation of suitable RAMS, Traffic Management Plans and Point of work Risk Assessments. Operational practices are in place to ensure that every scenario is planned for and mitigated against. CRL are contractually obliged to notify BCC representatives immediately of all incidents and accidents and report these in the monthly reports.
• KPI 3 Delivery of services to contractual timescales. The contract clearly defines the timescales in which particular types of work have to be delivered. These include a mixture of scheduled, reactionary and emergency tasks. We are measured against respond times with an expectation for greater than 90% of ordinary works tasks delivered in agreed timescales and 100% of emergency works.

Additionally CRL set a number of contract specific KPI’s to ensure enhanced standards in operational delivery. These include environmental standards which are a long term company goal. KPI’s work to focus CRL in the operational delivery of the contract and offer mutually beneficial rewards to BCC and CRL. We are delighted that we continue to meet and achieve KPI targets on a monthly basis.

The work which CRL carry out under this contract was recognised at the 2019 ALCI Landscape Awards where it received an Award of Merit in the Commercial Maintenance Category.