Leyland residents claim they are paying grounds maintenance fees to make it look "worse"

They say Accent Housing who employ grounds maintenance contractor Green Fingers to man the estate is leaving it anything but and have only been out twice since June.

Fed-up residents attended a meeting in June with representatives of Accent and Green Fingers, but say promises that were made have yet to be delivered.

Claiming this has been an ongoing problem for over a year, Howard Foreman, 67, who is a volunteer green inspector for Robin Hey where he has lived for 20 years, said: "Broken glass is the product of Accent's grounds maintenance contractor Green Fingers mowing over a bottle, smashing it and leaving it where small children were playing.

"This is a regular occurrence when they cut the grass.

"They cut the bushes and left a mess which again is par for the course and complaints have been made but nothing changes.

"Rubbish is also left to rot outside dwellings that have been reported to be removed, overgrown areas that have not been touched at all even though they were highlighted more than once over the last 12 months at least.

"They are supposed to be on site every 11 days to maintain the grounds but have only been on site twice since June."

He added: I, along with other residents, volunteered to be green inspectors on the estate and we were made promises as to the upkeep on the estate - these promises have not been kept.

"We have highlighted this problem with Accent as the grounds maintenance are supposed to litter pick and clear the area before mowing but nothing gets done about it.

"We had a meeting in June about it and the Green Fingers manager said he cannot make his employees do the job as he cannot stand over them.

"If employees don't do their job, in my day you would have been sacked.

"They are leaving the grounds in a worse state than when they arrive and we as residents are now talking about not paying the grounds maintenance fee as nobody is getting the service they pay for."

A spokesperson for Accent Housing said: “We take our estate management services very seriously at Accent, and we work closely with our residents to make sure we offer the best possible, value for money service.

“Our contractor works to an agreed standard, which includes the reporting, and removal, of any health and safety hazards, litter or rubbish they find when they visit the estate. Unfortunately, in between visits, the estate can become littered again quite quickly, and not all issues are immediately visible when they return.

“This is why we have recently set up our ‘green inspectors’ who are Accent resident volunteers.

"This initiative allows residents to have a more direct route to report any concerns, which we can then take care of. This is a relatively new idea, but it is working well with our own scheme inspections to both improve customer service, and have a positive effect on our estates which are home to a large number of households and, as such, may be more likely to experience issues of this nature.”

They added: “We have been made aware of the issues raised, which we have since taken care of, and we are not aware of any further issues. However, we would ask our inspectors, and any other residents on the estate, to let us know if they see anything which needs our attention. In the meantime, we would like to thank our inspectors for helping to improve things for all our residents on Robin Hey.”