Work to spruce up many of the city’s difficult to maintain traffic islands will start this month.

Seventeen traffic island sites have been identified across the city and will see garden beds or lawn replaced with concrete in a tidy up of these busy sites.

Gordon Naidoo, Hamilton City Council’s Head of Transportation, said many of the 17 sites had very little vegetation and were difficult to maintain or mow due to their location.

“Setting up temporary traffic management around these sites in order to keep maintenance crews and road users safe has proven challenging,” Naidoo said.

“The safety of staff working on or near our roads is a priority. Removing these sites from our maintenance programme will make it safer for our teams and brings with it other benefits.”

The narrow, confined nature of the traffic island sites has meant most plants struggle to survive long-term.

Having well-maintained traffic islands and roundabouts is important to residents, Naidoo said.

“Our community takes a lot of pride in having a tidy and attractive city. With our crews no longer having to maintain these difficult traffic islands, they can focus on looking after the many colourful flower beds and roadside plantings we have in Hamilton.”

A budget of $100,000 per annum for the next three years was approved for this work by Council’s Infrastructure and Transport Committee in November last year.

Connect Hamilton – a partnership between Council and Downer NZ – will carry out the work.

Council staff will continue to maintain plantings at 94 roundabouts across the city and mow or weed 2225 traffic islands.

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