I am writing to enquire about the Council’s use of herbicides in 2024. I would be very grateful if you could please respond to my questions below:
1. Does the Council, or contractors acting on behalf of the Council, use herbicides in the following areas:
a) Parks and green spaces No
b) Cemeteries No
c) Playing fields No
d) Road verges and roundabouts Yes
e) Hard surfaces such as pavements and highways Yes
f) Housing estates No
2. What volume of herbicides did the Council, or contractors acting on behalf of the Council, use from 1st January to 31st December 2024? Please answer in litres or kilograms.
121 litres.
3. Does the council, or contractors acting on behalf of the Council, use glyphosate-based herbicides?
Yes.
4. How much money did the Council spend on costs associated to buying and using herbicides from 1st January to 31st December 2024? Please include all costs, including but not limited to; the purchase of pesticide products, application equipment and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), staff training and costs associated to outsourcing to contractors.
The revenue budget for weed spraying is £52,000.00 for the 24/25 financial year.
5. How many complaints did the Council receive about weeds from 1st January to 31st December 2024?
This information is exempt from disclosure under Regulation 12(4) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (Manifestly Unreasonable). We don’t log complaints specifically to a category of weeds and therefore we would need to check all the ones that were received to see whether weeds were referenced in the request. There were 487 complaints for this time period and to check each one and go through to see whether it relates specifically to weeds would take roughly 5 minutes per complaint and this would be 40 hours of officer time.
The Council has considered the public interest in releasing this information and recognises there is a public interest in openness and transparency. However, there is a stronger public interest in not diverting staff resources from their core functions for the prolonged period of time it would take to answer this request.
6.a) Does the Council have a policy in place aimed at reducing or ending the use of herbicides on land under its control?
Yes.
b) If YES, please provide a link to the policy or provide a hard copy if not available online.
This can be found at the following link Weed Policy.