Earlier this year, a petition was set up calling on Wokingham Borough Council to sack its grass cutting contractors.

The contractors Tivoli drew the ire of neighbours in August when grass verges and bushes were apparently left uncut.

Neighbours in Earley and Woodley provided photos to the Local Democracy Reporting Service showing the uncut verges and bushes, prompting Dennis Goodlad, from Winnersh, to set up a petition calling on Tivoli’s contract to be ended and the grass cutting service to be brought back under the council’s control.

But the petition has failed as it fell just short of the number of signatories needed to trigger a response from the council.

READ MORE: Petition launched to sack Wokingham's grass cutting contractors

According to the council’s petition webpage, in order for a petition to be accepted it has to receive 50 signatories – but Mr Goodlad’s petition came just short with 46 people signing it.

The anger of neighbours over the overgrown grass and bushes prompted a leading councillor and a boss at Tivoli to apologise in the summer.

At that time, Councillor Parry Batth (Conservative, Shinfield North), executive member for environment and leisure, said: “The service that Tivoli Group Ltd has provided has been below the standards we and our residents would expect. We have been working with Tivoli to improve this, however this has been unsuccessful.

“The issue has been escalated and we have specified that they need to provide a fast and permanent solution to fulfil the obligations of the contract.”

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Meanwhile, Spencer Rock, Tivoli’s chief operating officer, said: “We are very proud of our partnership with Wokingham Borough Council and are committed to delivering a quality service which everyone can be proud of, however we acknowledge our grass cutting performance isn’t where we’d expect it to be at this stage.

“On behalf of Tivoli, I would like to apologise for the unsatisfactory performance and assure you that we are implementing all possible actions to rectify the situation as quickly as possible, while keeping the council informed of our progress at all times.”

The deadline to sign the petition to sack the contractors was reached on Wednesday, October 20.

The e-petitions webpage states that the minimum number of signatories is lower when the issues raised in it relate to a single council ward, with the requirement for a minimum of 10 people to sign it.

You can sign a current petition or submit a new e-petition using this link.

A response from the council has been requested.