RONNIE Richardson, 49, has spent the last 4 years working within the council’s parks team. Their focus is on keeping our parks clean and well-maintained so everyone can enjoy what they have to offer.
The team has various projects running across the year, one of their achievements in 2026 has been planting approximately 500 trees across the borough and creating small habitats to help protect the wildlife.
Below, Ronnie shares what day in his life looks like.
Early morning
The day begins at 8 am, I go to Dunsdale and attend a team briefing with my manager to discuss the main jobs for the day. I perform safety checks on all my tools and equipment before checking the vehicles and filling out the relevant paperwork, then I fuel up and head out for the day.
I have specific core duties in the morning. These are the essential jobs that need to be completed before anything else. During spring and summer this mostly involves cutting the grass at schools and playgrounds before moving on to other areas. It is all about making these areas as nice as possible for people to enjoy.
The core duties can also involve removing dead trees in public areas. Our focus is to keep everything clean, tidy, and well-maintained so we organise our work and decide what needs to be done as soon as possible.
Late morning
I am generally in one area for the day depending on the jobs where I will complete as much maintenance as possible. I usually spend one or two days in a specific location on a two-week cycle of all the areas where I do a variety of different jobs from working on the grass cutter to strimming. You do a bit of everything in this job.
In Autumn we tend to move onto the shrubs and lift the branches on the tree to help protect them as they grow. One of the main jobs is to cut back some of the hedges and get rid of weeds in preparation for the summer when the parks are used frequently with the nicer weather.
We receive a lot of help from volunteers in all areas who keep up with the cleaning and the maintenance when we aren’t there. These volunteers have been a massive part of the consistent upkeep of our parks; we are lucky to have them.
Early afternoon
There’s a lot of cleaning up to do on an afternoon to get ready for the end of the day. We spend time trimming the bushes back and cutting trees to tidy up the area.
This year, the team has done a lot of work in Locke Park, we removed all the dead wood and made small habitats for the wildlife. We have also noticed that there are blue bells growing which is an incredible sight as they have been almost non-existent for a number of years.
It is very challenging to try and keep the area clean and maintain the shrubs and bushes. Generally, there is a lot of litter, dog fouling and fly tipping. We want to make our parks and green spaces as nice as possible for visitors. It would make a huge difference if visitors could help us out and keep our parks clean.
Late afternoon
I finish my last jobs for the day and make sure that the area is clean, this involves sweeping the paths after strimming and collecting any leaves or shrubs that we have cut back, I make sure to leave the area better than I found it.
I head back to Dunsdale just before 4pm to return all the equipment ready to start again the next day. I offload the vehicles and fill in paperwork before a team debrief where we discuss what needs to be done in the following days. It is hard work but it’s also very rewarding to see the difference that we make as a team.
We still need help from visitors. It is very important that visitors clean up after themselves. It seems like a small thing, but it can make a huge difference to our parks.
Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods, Cllr. Neil Bendelow said: “I would like to say thank you to Ronnie and the team for taking care of our parks. The work they are doing across Redcar and Cleveland is incredibly important to keep our area clean and tidy so that everyone can enjoy it.
“I encourage all visitors to the parks to support the team and avoid fly tipping or dog fouling. Our green spaces are incredibly important to our communities so we must all do our part to ensure they are being looked after and protected.”