Environmental campaigners are planning to protest against proposals to reintroduce glyphosate weedkiller to the streets of Brighton and Hove.
Brighton and Hove City Council said that it was considering reintroducing glyphosate to manage unwelcome plants on pavements only.
It may bring back the herbicide – sold commercially as Roundup – in a “controlled droplet” way, applying it to individual weeds.
Details are contained in a report to the council’s City Environment, South Downs and the Sea Committee, giving councillors the option of keeping the ban and continuing with “manual removal”.
Election candidates of all political colours backed a ban on glyphosate in the run up to the 2019 council elections.
But during the local election campaign last year, many voters complained about the spread of weeds and the damage that they have caused to pavements, gutters and roads.
Save Our Starlings environmental campaigner and artist Steve Geliot called for a protest from 3pm next Tuesday (23 January) before the council committee meets. He said that the council had not consulted on the proposals.
Rather than operate a blanket approach to dealing with unwanted plants, Mr Geliot said that the council should “map it and zap it” by targeting plants with woody roots causing a hazard.
Mr Geliot has previously petitioned the council calling for a ban on chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides from council-owned downland to protect the starling population, famous for their murmurations.
When he first came to Brighton and Hove, there were 150,000 starlings. By two years ago, this was down to 8,000. Last winter there was a recovery to 13,000 birds.
He said: “It is coincidental but what is good for the starlings is not using pesticides, keeping wild verges and anything supporting wildflowers and insects.
“There have been problems (for pedestrians) with weeds for access (to the pavements). I accept that. But this is in the urban fringe where they (starlings) breed in the summer.”
Mr Geliot said that bringing back glyphosate weedkiller would “suppress the food supply” and that starlings could be lost to Brighton and Hove by 2030 as a result. The ban, he said, showed that their numbers could recover.
Wildlife gardening expert Kate Bradbury, who lives in Hove, was shocked at the proposals to lift the ban, saying that it helped hedgehogs and starlings.
She said: “Glyphosate is poison. It kills wildlife and causes cancer in humans – you only have to look at the number of lawsuits in the US to see this.
“In Brighton, many of us have noticed an increase in numbers of starlings, hedgehogs, house sparrows and moths since the ban.
“Those street weeds are providing a lifeline to wildlife amid the sea of paving and plastic grass that is encroaching on our gardens.”
Ms Bradbury is also concerned the chemicals will wash into the sea when it rains, affecting sea life.
The council has tried other methods since banning chemical sprays, including taking on extra staff to manually remove unwanted plants.
But too few people went for the jobs tackling weeds along the hundreds of miles of Brighton and Hove streets and, more weeds grew, they even made national headlines.
In response to Mr Geliot’s posts on Twitter, Labour councillor Tim Rowkins, who chairs the council’s City Environment, South Downs and the Sea Committee, said that councillors were not looking at a blanket approach but targeting specific weeds.
Councillor Rowkins: “We have a duty to maintain safe streets for residents and we are currently failing in that regard.
“Continuing as we are is not an option. We have to act and have gone above and beyond to make sure we are doing so in a way that minimises any impact on biodiversity.”
The City Environment, South Downs and the Sea Committee is due to meet at Hove Town Hall at 4pm on Tuesday 23 January. The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
Kate Bradbury is clearly unconcerned about the many elderly or disabled residents who find their pavements have been made unsafe by the years of neglect.
A targetted approach as outlined by Cllr Rowkins seems the best option – something needs to happen because some pavements and walkways become quite dangerous in the summer season.
Neglect is the word, same as everything in Brighton over the last 10 years or more. Mind you it’s the electorates fault. Probably also the Tories fault for not fielding a strong outspoken and radical team at the election, allowing independents in at Rottingdean is unforgivable.
The independents are great in my experience. they answer emails, and take action when asked. unlike any other Councillor I have ever interacted with.
The two independent Cllrs in Rottingdean are great advocates for the ward. They always respond in a timely manner.
I join other comments here that the independents in that ward do a lot for their area and are great examples of engaged councillors, party-aligned or not.
There protesters should be out there with tools sorting it out. Or move to the countryside.
Honestly, I agree with you. A protest that demonstrates what can be done with some manual work, to me, would be far more powerful then someone standing around complaining.
I can only speak from personal experience. I live on the eastern edge of the city, just above the Marina, and the truth here is that smaller birds, such as house sparrows, the odd robin or tits, only came back eventually after house to house bin collections were stopped and the huge ever-increasing plague of heavy bomber seagulls, which had ravaged bin bags left out for collection on the pavement and anything else vaguely edible that they could find and had also become very menacing to smaller birds and the public, found somewhere else to go. They were what drove away other birds. Nothing to do with weed-killer.
Additionally, ‘activists’ who are really speaking for particular areas of the city, and/or their own particular agenda are certainly not speaking for everyone. The problems are very different in different parts of the city.
However, it is a fact that since the weed-killer was stopped, the local pavements, which weren’t in great condition before that because the council hasn’t done any maintenance to anything for years (including drains), have become much harder to negotiate. The weeds have become so entrenched that they’ve pushed up paving stones and, despite those who say everyone should pull up the weeds outside their own premises – if they are physically able to do so, which some of us are not – the first fact is that some of them are so tough and deep-rooted that they won’t come up, so the roots remain in the ground, and the second fact is that many people live in HMOs or buildings divided into rental flats (which have a frequent turnover of tenants with no interest whatsoever in the outside environment), with no garden space – hence the decision to introduce communal bins in the first place – so are never going to attend to any weeds. Pretty much all we have seen for years is one council litter-picking man who moves at snail’s pace and will pick up oddments of litter with a picking tool (waste of time anyway with the wind here, as a new lot appears almost immediately) but never tackles any weeds, and even he hasn’t been sighted recently. During the fairly recent bin strike, when the communal bins went unemptied for significant periods, the heavy bomber seagulls were back in a flash, as were enormous rats. So, eco-zealotry is all very well, but has to be tempered with reality. I am no fan of this council or any that have preceded it in recent years, but on this occasion they have come up with what seems like a pragmatic and sensible solution to a very real problem and I would remind the eco-zealots that this solution is meant to be temporary until a practical alternative can be found. If it isn’t temporary, then that’ may be the time to protest and shout – not now.
And, by the way, hedgehogs, starlings et al don’t pay council tax, but many of us who do -and it keeps on going up – see almost nothing in return for it, so the council can do us this one small favour re the weeds and should stick to their guns on it.
“Hey grandpa? Why don’t we have starlings and hedgehogs any more?”
“Well – we used to kid. But the varmints just wouldn’t pay council tax!”
(In the future ecocide will be a crime, with damn stiff penalties)
I’m sure the council won’t spray areas that residents have weeded. So if residents are so bothered about this then this is what they should do.
As for Patcham Guy above, who presumably lives in Patcham (?) he knows nothing about what the Independents – in West Saltdean, Rottingdean etc particularly – do. They got elected because residents were sick of the previous councillors, most of whom were latterly AWOL for one reason or another even if they were technically still in office. The Indies over that way (unfortunately, I’m not in their ward any more, but wish I were because we have a couple of non-communicating and, as far as I can see, do-nothing or very little GMB/Lab councillors in Kemptown, one of whom has now been expelled/ suspended from the party and is under investigation for possible electoral irregularities) do a lot for their residents.
Not that she needs me to defend her, and no defence is necessary because her outstanding record speaks for itself, but Cllr Fishleigh has had a dedicated website for some years now, where she informs locals of what is going on (whether that be a council-type issue or community activities/initiatives) and responds to messages and tries to resolve problems. She has also been involved personally, i.e. hands-on, not just talking about it, in many initiatives to clean up and improve her local patch in circumstances where the council wasn’t bothering. She couldn’t do everything on her own, though, which was what was happening in a previously much larger 3-councillor ward, where she was basically left to do it all single-handedly because, in the end, the other two, whoever they may have been at the time, were out of action but didn’t vacate their seats. So, thankfully, she now has a fellow Indie councillor and, together, they are doing their utmost for the ward.
Patcham Guy has no idea at all what he’s talking about in this particular respect, but just seems to be trotting out the same half-baked, irrelevant stuff that others on this website do. It’s about actions, not political stripe or dogma. He is right about one thing though. The Tories made no effort whatsoever round this way in the last local elections. In KT ward I didn’t get so much as one Tory leaflet through the door, but a lot of semi-literate and badly-produced garbage from Labour. Lack of Tory leafleting was often the case when I was in Rottingdean Coastal as well, although the unlamented Joe Miller did put in a belated doorstep appearance once at the fag-end of a GE campaign and had no idea whatsoever why my street – and who knows how many others – had been missed by the leaflet distributors. In KT last year one Tory candidate was someone I had heard of but didn’t necessarily want to vote for, and we have yet to find out who the other person actually was, apart from being given a name which meant nothing to anybody – no biographical info anywhere and completely invisible. Basically, the B&H Tories who were in a position to mount a strong campaign with strong candidates (ex-Cllr Bell in particular and the local Conservative party websites as well) didn’t have a clue and had given up. The existing ones who are still in office(for example Alistair McNair and Samer Bagaeen) are, in the main, known to their residents, and others across the City, because they try their best to help their residents without getting bogged down in party political dogma. And, despite all the criticism that has been flung at Dawn Barnett by supporters of other parties, she did her very best unselfishly for her residents over many years, which is more than anyone can say for a lot of other councillors in this City. So, as far as I’m concerned, the more genuine Independents the better, because Labour party politics , often in tandem with GMB membership, and Green stuff, which often went-hand-in-hand with – and still does in at least one case -subservience to the bicycle/cycle lane lobby, has not served the population at all well in recent years. We had a good Independent candidate in KT last year, but he was defeated by the GMB/Labour dogmatists who can’t see any further than a limp red rosette, and that hasn’t turned out at all well.
Does artist Steve Geliot have any evidence to support his claim that chemical weedkillers and fertilisers affect starling populations?
His “evidence” is on his Twitter page.
Actually, fed up with Brighton politics and the two others I think I agree with you. It would be great if they were all independent, without the shackles of party dogma. Unfortunately in the meantime Brighton is suffering under Labour and before the Greens. I still think the independents probably vote Tory, (in a national election) Yes I do live in Patcham.
Thank you for that, Patcham Guy. I can’t say how any of the Iindependents vote nationally, nor do I care. For me it’s what they do locally that really counts. They do seem to concentrate on actual local issues in their wards and what they can do about them rather than following a dogmatic ‘policy agenda’ and a party whip.
Until these last few years in Brighton & Hove under Greens/Lab the council didn’t actually seem to be hurting the residents all that much but they are now and seem to have forgotten what they’re there for.
I also forgot to give a positive mention to Peter Atkinson in Portslade, who, whilst ex-Lab and maybe still Lab at heart, resigned from the party some time ago on a matter of principle and was still re-elected last year as an independent. I don’t mind what their personal political persuasions are, as long as they do their best for their constituents on local issues.
Policy agenda aka a manifesto.
The two separate sets of independents both had a manifesto as they each had several candidates and both were registered as political parties.
And a council made up of 54 independent councillors would still have to tackle issues like this, school closures, balancing the budget and so on and so on.
The article claims that our council have tried “other methods” – would be interested to know what they are. Have seen nothing around my way except for mechanical clearance – which has worked well tbh – no weeds problem at all. Have not seen or heard of any other methods being trialled tho.
Has anyone out there noticed the council doing anything different? Any innovative trials of different methods? Seems to me they have just sat on their hands and done nothing and now are going back to glyphosphate and all its evils because the sitting-on-hands thing didn’t work
They also tried burning them but that also has its own set of issues. As does mechanical removal causing things like muscle injury.
I’ve not had time to read the committee report (it will be on the councils website for all and sundry to peruse) but I’m sure they will have outlined what other measures they have tried.
I live in Hollingbury and apart from one road I have seen no evidence of anything being done, I don’t know what method they used in Hartford Avenue. I do the pavements outside my own and my neighbour’s house using salt, vinegar and elbow grease but I’m retired and have more time than many.
Whereabouts are you, Conan? Over here, east end of Kemptown, people just walk in the road because of the state of the pavements – that’s not just weeds but the appalling state of the pavements generally., made worse by utility companies constantly digging them up and slapping on a bit of uneven tarmac. The problem arose originally because the ban on the stuff was introduced with no plan whatsoever about any alternative. Loads of mutterings but no action. Here, anyway, we’ve seen no clearance of any sort, except for this guy who used to potter along at zero mph with a litter picker and who ignored weeds entirely.
I think your question should actually be (in some areas of the City anyway) – ‘has anyone out there noticed the council doing anything at all about anything at all’ And the answer here is an emphatic NO.
No.
The blessed isle of Hanover of course – Cllr Rowkins constituency.
We have been serviced well by street cleansing ppl – a bit too well as a great crop of marigolds were scraped from the frontage a few weeks back which I would rather have kept. Only complaint is too much wild plant removal here!
Yes, actually. But not to the frequency that it needs to be.