The new Christchurch City Council ride-on lawn mower is powered by electric battery, making it environmentally-friendly and quiet, said says Hagley Park manager Rupert Bool.
“It’s pretty cool. It’s nice and quiet and easy to use," said Bool, who was among the first to use the new ride-on mower, which is believed to be the only one of its kind in New Zealand.
"We’ve got a huge amount of grass to cut in Hagley Park so it’s going to be really advantageous to have a ride-on lawn mower that we can use without disturbing the peace of people using the park"
The ride-on mower will also be used in parts of the central city and in the Botanic Gardens.
It is the latest in a growing list of electric-powered equipment council parks staff are using for maintenance work in central city and regional parks around Christchurch.
The council has been gradually moving away from petrol-operated tools towards zero exhaust emission options as part of its commitment to making the organisation’s activities net carbon neutral by 2030, said council head of parks Andrew Rutledge.
It has bought a pure electric van for central city parks maintenance and two battery electric off-road motorbikes for park rangers working at Bottle Lake Forest, Spencer Park and Travis Wetland Reserve to use.
“The e-tools have many advantages – they’re less noisy, there are no fumes and they tend to be lighter to handle so they are user-friendly as well as environmentally-friendly," Rutledge said.
"Using them is a simple way we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions our parks maintenance activities."
