Tauranga City Council is attempting to mow down ratepayer costs by letting the grass grow a lot longer than usual in some of the city's parks and reserves.

The cost saving measure came out of TCC's 2014/15 Annual Plan deliberations where councillors attempted to save $90,000 through the plan, per year.

Grass in some Tauranga reserves will be maintained at a lot longer length, starting this month.

One of the more visible areas where the councillors directed staff to make savings is mowing the grass on city reserves – a project usually costing ratepayers about $60,000 a month.

The grass length for most Tauranga reserves will continue to be maintained between 30mm-60mm.

But under the changes, some Tauranga reserves will now be maintained at 80mm-200mm.

TCC team leader for parks operations, Steve Webb, says the mowing restrictions will save about $50,000 a year.

Keeping the grass between 3mm0-60mm requires about 35 mows per year. The new 80mm-200mm specification is expected to require 24 mows.

He says it won't affect playing fields, but will affect the surrounds in some instances.

For example, the grassy banks at Mitchell Park and Waipuna Park will be allowed to grow longer because they don't impact on how people use the park.

The area reserve used for overflow parking across the tracks from Blake Park will also be growing to 200mm this spring and summer.

'Places like that I think changing the spec will actually work. There will be other places where we will get some feedback,” says Steve.

'What we have tried to do is get a fair spread, so it's all over the city. It's not localised or concentrated in one area.

'We ruled out the most of the high profile parks, so we are not doing Coronation, or Memorial parks. We also ruled out reserves with playgrounds.”

There's going to be a noticeable difference in grass length, and council staff want feedback, says Steve.

A page on the TCC's website has a list of affected reserves and an email address for feedback.

'Last year level of service changed in storm water reserves where the grass was allowed to be a little bit longer. I think people have accepted that now,” says Steve.

'We want to know where people think it's working, or where they don't.

'It will be quite different going from a specification of 30mm-60mm to 80-200mm. That's quite a big jump, but you have got to make that big jump to get savings.”

If the mowing length was increased to 60mm-90mm the contractor would still be mowing the grass the same amount of times, says Steve.

Because the mowing is done by various contractors, TCC has tried to spread the impact fairly.

'It is weather dependent. The way it works out for the mowing contractors is they will still be doing more mowing in spring than they would in winter.

'Our contract being about that outcome, they do less work and get paid the same money in winter. But in spring they do a lot more work and they still get paid the same money.

'So for us to achieve this meant we have to negotiate with contractors and work out how we are going to do this.

'They have been really good about it. It affects their business, how many people they need to do a job affects people's work and livelihood at the end of the day.”