The weedkiller glyphosate has failed to kill woodier plants, according to a councillor.
Green councillor Kerry Pickett made the claim as she asked whether Brighton and Hove City Council would use the herbicide – sold commercially as Roundup – again next year.
At Hove Town Hall on Thursday (24 October) Councillor Pickett said: “Glyphosate has now been sprayed throughout the city for most of the summer.
“As we know, its use is weather dependent and it cannot be sprayed when it is raining so, in light of our climate-changing weather patterns that will only get worse and with the fact that it has failed to kill the woodier stemmed plants, as initially planned, does the council intend to repeat this process again next year?”
She also asked whether residents could opt for their street to be removed from the spraying regime which was reintroduced in the summer after a five-year break.
Labour cabinet member Tim Rowkins said that the rain had “accelerated” weed growth and delayed wider use of the “controlled droplet” treatment which would be reviewed.
Councillor Rowkins said: “I’m keen on it (the opt out) and I’m keen to explore anything as long as it can give us confidence the problem will be maintained to the satisfaction of residents.”
Councillors voted to ban the use of glyphosate spraying in 2019, with the policy achieving cross-party support.
However, rather than phasing out the weedkiller, council workers stopped spraying altogether which resulted in an overgrowth of weeds on pavements and roadsides across Brighton and Hove.
Despite efforts to recruit workers to remove the weeds manually and experiments with different methods, none proved successful.
“Rain had “accelerated” weed growth” you really couldn’t make it up. The Labour council only introduced this policy as a political statement after all the noise they made about their “war on weeds’ before the election. Their plan was never going to be the answer. Yes weeds can be a problem, yes they need to be tackled where they impact on pedestrians, but this was never the answer.
As has been said all along, they really need to focus on problem weeds in problem areas, rather than this ridiculous droplet method using this poisonous and toxic liquid which has huge question marks over safety and environmental risks to wildlife.
BTW – did we ever get a clear answer as to why the ONLY ward in the city that didn’t use this method was Councillor Tim Rowkins’? Is it coincidental that it followed heavy lobbying from residents in his ward and he recognised his seat may be at risk if it was used there – who knows! Call me cynical, but it looked like a big dose of NIMBYism that every other part of the city had it used somewhere in the council’s roll out plans.
Unless the “opt out” means the residents of that street are now responsible for removing all the weeds then it’s not really an option.
As has been said time and time again if there are no weeds on a particular street when the sprayers are visiting they won’t be anything to spray.
I’m not aware of any spraying having been done in the road where I live in Patcham. I clear the weeds from the pavement and gutter, using a hoe, in front of my house and that of my neighbour. It only takes a few minutes and I’ve only felt the need to do it twice this year. Directly oppposite me the weeds are 2 feet high in the pavement while the gutter, and drain grill, are full of grass and weeds. Some other people in the road clear the weeds themselves, but many don’t, so maybe someone has decided that action from the council workers is not needed as the weeds have only partly been allowed to take over.