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How to win grounds maintenance contracts
Grass cutting, hedges, shrub beds, play areas, verges and trees: councils, parish councils, schools and housing associations all buy it, and much of it is local and the right size for a small firm.
The short version: small firms win a lot of public grounds work, but much of it never reaches the national tender sites. Look locally as well as nationally, price from the schedule (cuts, areas, frequencies), and show your qualifications and how you'll report each visit.
1. Where grounds contracts are advertised
- National sites: grounds and landscaping tenders open now, plus the buyer pages for housing associations and schools, where many contracts aren't marked as suitable for small firms.
- Parish and town councils: they only have to publish a national notice for contracts of £30,000 or more, so much of their grass cutting is advertised on their own website, in meeting agendas or in the village newsletter. How to find and win parish work.
- Frameworks: some housing groups buy grounds work through consortium frameworks, so a place on one can bring calls for work from several landlords.
2. How busy they are
Recent grounds and landscaping tenders on Find a Tender drew a median of five bids, and about one in five drew two or fewer. The figures and the method.
3. Price from the schedule
- Work out the hours per visit for each site from the areas and the specification, then multiply by the number of cuts or visits a year. Add travel between sites, machinery, fuel, green waste disposal and supervision.
- Check what happens in a wet spring or a dry summer: is the price per cut, per visit or fixed for the year? Say what you've assumed.
- Price wage rises over the whole contract, and check whether the buyer asks for the real Living Wage. What buyers have paid for grounds work.
4. Show you're qualified and safe
- Pesticides: anyone applying herbicides professionally needs the right certificates (for example the PA1 foundation module plus the module for the equipment used), and buyers increasingly ask how you'll reduce chemical use.
- Trees and machinery: chainsaw and tree work tickets for staff who need them, and safe working by roads and in public spaces.
- Insurance: public liability, often £5 million or £10 million on public contracts, and employer's liability.
- Play areas: if inspections are included, say who is qualified to inspect and how defects are reported.
5. What buyers score
- Reporting: how you'll prove each visit happened (photos, a simple log) and report defects such as fly-tipping, damage or dangerous trees.
- Resourcing the season: how you cover the spring and summer peak and staff absence.
- Biodiversity and social value: wildflower areas, reduced mowing, local jobs and apprentices. How to answer social value questions.
Check the dates in the documents. In one parish grounds tender this autumn, the notice gave the day the envelopes would be opened, three days after the real deadline. Read the documents, not just the notice. Two-stage jobs need an expression of interest first.
This guide is general information, not legal advice. Always read the tender documents and check current certification rules for your work.