Gardeners quit over abuse

Amazon Gardening Services have decided to terminate their contract with Eddisons to manage the estate. They have done this because a small number of residents have been harassing their staff, and someone has seen fit to complain to Trading Standards about them. Director Ross Purden quite reasonably takes the view that his staff are not paid to put up with this, and his company can't afford the risk to its reputation.

This probably means that Eddisons will have to put the work out to tender again. This will take some months, so over the coming summer there will be nobody cutting the grass and hedges and doing the other maintenance work around the estate.

Even before this happened there were not many companies who would bid for this work. Before Amazon we had two other companies try to do this. They bid less, but the first gave up because the hedges were too big, and the second gave up after their hedge cutting tractor got bogged down and couldn't get under the trees. Compared to that, Amazon have been doing an excellent job.

And word gets around: other companies may well be reluctant to bid on this contract for fear that they will get the same treatment.The bottom line is that whoever we get to replace Amazon may well cost more and do a worse job, assuming we can get anybody at all.

We on the committee are also upset about this. We are unpaid volunteers, and we have worked hard to get the best possible deal for the estate.

So, to the people who are responsible for this situation: nice job breaking it, heroes!

The committee will be meeting Eddisons next Friday to consider the next steps. We'll keep you posted.