LEDBURY'S new "lengthsman" will not be asked to fix local potholes after all, but he may be asked to cut grass in some public areas.

The town council believed, following recent talks with Herefordshire Council, that funding would not be available for a lengthsman to undertake grass cutting duties.

Now it seems potholes are off the work-list for the lengthsman, and grass-cutting duties may be reinstated.

Town councillors were always keen to have a lengthsman cutting some areas of grass, following last summer when long grass in public areas became a contentious issue, thanks to programme of limited grass-cutting by Herefordshire Council contractor, Balfour Beatty.

The issue was discussed at last week's full town council meeting in the Market House.

Cllr Martin Eager, chairman of the town's environment and leisure committee said of the lengthsman scheme: "Grass cutting may be back in the mix. It is being trialled in some parishes. We are going back to Balfour Beatty to see if we can adopt grass cutting , perhaps in the Walled Garden and Queen's Walk.

"But we need a plan. Balfour Beatty needs a plan from us within the next couple of weeks. There is quite a lot a lengthsman can do for us."

Typically, the duties of a lengthsman would involve mainly minor roads and work such as gulley clearing and verge cutting; and this would require some liaison not only with the town council but Herefordshire Council, which would help to fund the scheme, and Balfour Beatty.

Herefordshire councillor for Ledbury, Cllr Liz Harvey, welcomed news that grass-cutting could be part of a Ledbury lengthsman's brief, after all.

She said: "I said that grass-cutting would end up being in. I said it would."

Town councillors will submit a plan by the end of the month.

But despite Ledbury's ongoing pot-hole problems, it is unlikely that the Ledbury lengthsman will be asked to fix a single one.

Pothole repairs would remain the duty of Balfour Beatty.

Cllr Harvey, speaking at the meeting, asked why the lengthsman would not be asked to fix potholes too.

She said: "We have plenty of examples of potholes that any one of us could fall into. There are even two massive ones on St Katherine's car park."

Cllr Eager said: "We had a meeting with the lengthsman of Colwall and Malvern Wells. He went into great detail describing how the scheme works. The lengthsman we spoke to wasn't trained up to do potholes and he said he didn't know many lengthsman who were."

But he said that a lengthsman scheme, involving pothole repairs, had been trialled by three local parishes last year.

Cllr Harvey said: "We should not burn our boats on this, and we should perhaps talk to a parish that did it, rather than to a lengthsman who didn't."

Ledbury's mayor, Cllr Bob Barnes said: "We can expand the scheme as and when we feel we are able."