Public Liability Insurance for Verge Gardens

Do councils provide public liability insurance for verge gardeners who help to green our streets? Should they?

Public liability insurance is one of the sticking points with verge garden policies. Some councils demand that residents get their own insurance. Other councils decide it is too complicated, so they refuse to allow verge gardening altogether. Most policies don’t mention insurance at all.

This is my understanding of the insurance issue. It is not professional or legal advice.

Councils don’t provide insurance - how can they?

Unless they specifically say so, you shouldn’t assume that your council provides public liability insurance for verge gardens. Not for the verge gardener, nor for people who use the verge. How can they as they have little control or oversight on what people do?

Councils also don't provide public liability for damage done by someone with a mower. Do you want your rates money paying insurance for the careless resident who chops their toes off while mowing in thongs, or the one who sends a stone through the neighbour’s window? And what about those ankle-twisting furrows created with the whippersnipper at the edges of paths?

The variety of methods used to convert verge gardens makes them a lot less predictable than turf. While I used hand tools only to weed out grass and replace with tubestock, some people bring in bobcats and other heavy equipment. And some put in completely unsuitable plants. Do you want your rates to cover their liability?

If any sort of work is being done on the verge by a commercial organisation or social enterprise, they should have their own insurance to cover their work and workers.

Community gardens on public land are run by incorporated groups which must have their own public liability insurance.

Councils cover their own volunteers, but…

Councils do provide public liability for volunteers (e.g. bush care), but they also insist on those volunteers signing agreements, undertaking OH&S training, and following rules. Council officers manage the volunteer groups which takes considerable council resources.

The Council policies are designed to help you

The restrictions in council policies, things like no rocks, no trip hazards, no spiky plants, and so on, are all about safety and avoiding the situations where some is hurt and is looking for a party to sue.

That’s another reason why street trees - the one item most likely to be part of an insurance claim - are best left to council and their qualified arborists.

Following the rules, staying within council guidelines, doesn’t mean that you are covered by their insurance. What it does mean is that you are less likely to cause an accident and injure yourself or others.

Remember the multiple viewpoints

Introducing a verge garden policy is no small matter, even if it seems simple to a resident looking at a small patch of land in front of their home.

One of the recurring themes of the Shady Lanes Project is how verge gardening brings many diverse disciplines and viewpoints crashing together. We can shout at each other, or we can try to understand where each party is coming from to find solutions together.

With any innovation, there will be issues that don’t fit current laws and practices - think e-scooters, Uber, and every online business - so there’s a messy period while everyone works it out.

Within councils, there will be many departments with responsiblity for the verge space and each will approach the matter within the lens of their discipline and the frameworks of their jobs.

For example:

• Arborists will be concerned about people digging around their street trees or building up soil around the trunks.

• The legal department will think about liability, risk, and conflict.

• The traffic department will think about sightlines, access, and safety.

• The environmental departments will worry about people planting invasive weed species, runoff to creeks, etc

• If people want to grow food, there will be concerns about contaminated land, and the pesticides they might spray on the food plants.

• Various departments will worry about equity and accessibility, active transport, and neighbourhood harmony.

• And then there are the politicians…

All of these will be asking: “What can possibly go wrong? What is the worst that verge gardeners might do? What will this cost us in time and resources to manage or fix?”

We want our councils to ask those questions, because if they don’t, the community and ratepayers will pay the price when things go wrong.

There is also a question about which department will be responsible for creating and managing the verge garden policy. Councils usually have a process in place for residents and contractors to apply to do work on the verge - putting in driveways and that sort of thing. This work, quite rightly, requires permits and public liability insurance. That protects the council, the ratepayers, and the resident. If they adapt that process to include verge gardens, those requirements will naturally flow through.

So, it’s not that the council has decided to impose the requirement for insurance for a verge garden, it’s that they haven’t yet worked out how to remove the need. Removing it takes much longer, and takes the confidence that they can trust verge gardeners to be cooperative, responsible, and aware of the risks.

So, what’s the answer?

There are a couple of policies that mention insurance as something the resident should think about. That’s a roundabout way of saying that it’s your responsibility if you cause an accident – just as it is when you mow, or if you park your car across the footpath.

This paragraph from Randwick’s policy sums it up well: “This policy has been developed to manage public liability risks. However, this does not prevent a third party from making a claim against the resident for any injury, loss or damage caused by the road verge garden or planter box.”

My approach is to follow council guidelines and garden in a way that considers the safety and comfort of all other users of the space. The design includes a dedicated postie path and the garden bed flush with the sides of the concrete path so people can step off the path without risk of injury.

As such is it no more remarkable in an insurance sense than neighbouring grass verges. We all mow or garden at our own risk. What about you and your local council?

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Thank you to Judy from

East Gippsland Verge Gardens - EGVG. Bairnsdale

for her question about councils and public liability insurance for verge gardens. I’ll answer her question more in the groups section (paid subcribers) but this post is for everyone.