Question:
I am writing to you as a local resident who is very concerned that the council may be using pesticides in public spaces such as parks, playgrounds, cemeteries, pavements, and housing estates.
There are plenty of non-chemical alternatives available and almost half of UK councils are now taking some kind of action to reduce or end their pesticide use. Countries such as France and Denmark have banned pesticides from villages, towns and cities nationwide. They are proving every day that it is possible for public spaces to look well-cared for without the use of toxic chemicals.
The vast majority of pesticides used by the council are herbicides (weedkillers) applied almost entirely for cosmetic reasons. Regular exposure to even small amounts of pesticides has the potential to harm human health, with children and pregnant people particularly at risk. These chemicals also cause environmental damage, contaminating water and removing much-needed habitat relied upon by wildlife such as bees and birds.
Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN UK) has a wealth of free resources to help local authorities go pesticide-free, including a “three-year phase out plan” which has already been proven to be effective by the many councils that have adopted it. PAN UK have also conducted the largest survey to date on pesticide use by local authorities. See the results for 2024 here.
I would be hugely grateful if you could please respond to my email to let me know if the council is currently using pesticides and whether there is a reduction plan in place.
Many thanks for your time. I do hope that, together, we can achieve a pesticide-free local environment in which both humans and wildlife thrive!
Answer:
The Councils climate change and Green to the Core initiative is that the Council eliminates the use of pesticides, herbicides, and peat in council grounds maintenance. As such , we keep the use of such pesticides and herbicides to an absolute minimum and our grounds maintenance contractor can only use herbicide for weed control on a very limited number of shrub beds, once per annum. In addition, use of herbicide is also occasionally authorised by officers on an individual basis to target a particular issue that may have arisen. But essentially, we avoid using them wherever and whenever possible.
Unfortunately, it is true to say that currently non-chemical alternatives are more expensive to implement and whilst we are required to keep areas weed free we do not have the budget to pay for manual weeding or other non-chemical methods at present.
