Swathe cutting - video transcript

[Caption] Soft landscape - Swathe cutting

A member of our highways team talks us through the process of swathe cutting.

Team member: "Swathe cutting is where you cut 900 millimetres of grass from the road edging to make the roads safe, and improve the visibility on the junction so they can see to get out of the junctions safely.

On average, per day, per tractor, and per hedge cutter, which you see me standing next to, we do between 30 to 35 kilometers a day, and then there's a backup team that goes around behind us with a van and strimmers, and strim around the street furniture, road signs, black and white bollards, all junction signs, anything that's in the swathe width gets strimmed. Anything that's in the sight line gets cut."

The team member shows us parts of the tractor used to swathe cut.

Team member: "So as you can see this is the head that cuts the grass. This is the rotor shaft that goes round-and-round this way to cut the grass. There's 28 blades on here that rotate round and round and round. As you can see they're all offset on the spiral so that you get a better effect and a better finish.

Have a little bit of respect for the operator in the tractor and the hedge cutter, keep the safe distance away from it. Just be aware and just be careful and safe."