Council’s new hedger trims need for lengthy lane closures

Council’s strong focus on delivering core services has been bolstered by the recent arrival of a new innovative hedging machine, saving time and increasing worker safety.

Councillor Andrew Robinson said the $270,000 piece of machinery would improve the safety of Council workers and aim to cut down time traffic lanes are closed for hedging.

“Townsville has hundreds of hedges lining median strips that our crews maintain on a rotating basis. In order to trim these safely we often have to close lanes for hours at a time to keep our people and road users safe,” Cr Robinson said.

“The goal of this new hedger is that we can complete the job more efficiently and can greatly reduce the time lanes are closed to traffic.”

Councillor Robinson said the efficiency in time and resources meant Council’s gardening crews could focus on maintaining other areas throughout the city.

“This new machine is literally cutting down on the time our gardening crews have to spend on the tools hedging, which is a manual repetitive task, further improving our workers health and safety,” Cr Robinson said.

“By rolling out our new innovative piece of machinery all the way from Europe, these gardeners can focus on the many other jobs on their to-do list.

“Council owns and maintains well over 300 parks, so there is plenty of green space and work involved to keep our city looking pristine.”

“We ask that if you see our crews maintaining our median strips or if you see our new orange hedger on the road, please slow down for their safety and your own.”

The new machine is a 3.5-tonne, single seater enclosed vehicle with a mechanical boom and vacuum system that sucks-up and stores leaf material as it is cut, saving on crews having to dispose of waste manually.