ANOTHER plea has been issued to stop drivers parking their cars on grass verges.

Grounds maintenance workers in Stratton are becoming increasingly concerned about thoughtless parking in the parish and have asked drivers to be more considerate.

Parish council officers have reported “some minor successes” since they last raised the issue earlier this year. But now that winter is here, they are concerned that cars are could cause serious damage to the parish’s green spaces.

Oliver Saunders, the Stratton St Margaret Parish Council’s senior open spaces officer, said: “We don’t do a lot of maintenance work during the winter, but come next spring we don’t want to be left with a lot of rutted grass verges that will look really unsightly.

“The majority of people don’t park on grass verges, but there is a minority that do, and I receive a lot of complaints from people about it.”

Oliver described the potential damage that could be done to the grass verges when work stops over the winter months as his “main concern”.

“Grass cutting season will be stopping in the next two or three weeks; we probably have one more cut to do over the whole area,” he said.

“But we are worried that our green areas will look bad the following season when we start cutting again.”

Some of the worst incidents of grass verge parking can be seen in Oxford Road and Dores Road, though it is considered a parish-wide, and indeed a Swindon-wide, problem.

Another problem is the potential for accidents due to people’s vision being blocked.

Oliver said: “Cars parked there often block sight lines of other residents trying to get out of their driveways, which is a very serious problem.”

Councillors in Stratton always take pride in their green spaces and maintaining the parish’s green spaces is one of their top priorities.

Earlier this year, £1,500 of taxpayers money had to be spent carrying out maintenance work on the verges because so many people were using them as makeshift driveways.

Oliver added: “We politely ask people to consider alternative parking options in future.”