A row between politicians in the idyllic Roman city of Lincoln has led the Lincolnshire Echo to launch its Supergrass campaign.

Not to do with drugs, not the rock group and not snitching to the police – but the green stuff that grows at the side of the road.

The verges aren’t being cut in many areas of the city and it’s driving the locals wild.

Lincoln City Council and Lincolnshire County Council cannot agree on who should pay for the work – so they’ve left it to grow…and grow.

And since featuring the problem, the Echo has been inundated with e-mails, letters, faxes and phone calls from people complaining about the state of their verges.

Reporter Dan Sharpe told readers: “Residents are claiming Lincoln is a mess because grass verges are being allowed to grow wild between cuts.

“The Lincolnshire Echo is launching the Supergrass campaign, and as part of that campaign we are calling for Lincoln city councillors to get together with the county council and discuss a solution to the problem.”

He took a close look at the current situation in the city, the background and the issues involved.

He found the county council, responsible for verges next to public roads, pays for seven cuts a year. And until this April the city council spent £42,000 on a further seven cuts. But because it has to find £579,000 of budget cutbacks it has decided it can no longer pay the extra.

And the county has refused to up the number of grass cuts it makes, claiming the decision for extra grass cutting rests with the city authority.

The city council is, however, still paying for its amenity verges – areas of grass which are not next to a road – to be cut 14 times a year.

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