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Here’s how Brighton’s streets look after the Greens banned weed killer
The council’s decision was well-intentioned – but created a city full of unsafe, overgrown roads and pavements
Borage, yarrow, knotgrass and ribwort; for the enthusiastic forager there are herbs enough to fill an apothecary’s cabinet. This is no countryside hedgerow, however, but rather the pavement outside a £1.5 million house in Hove.
Five-foot tall horseweed growing up between the cracks in the paving slabs has become a familiar sight for the residents of Brighton and Hove. On some streets a tapestry of grass has formed that makes it impossible to walk in a straight-line down the hilly streets. It is a verdant sight, but not, however, a welcome one for residents.
“My mother is 89 and if she’s walking around on these pavements, she can’t do it,” says one local who preferred not to be named. “I worry about her falling all the time.”
For the past four years nature has been left to its own devices after the then Green Party-led council in 2019 banned toxic weed killers that include chemicals such as glyphosate following a petition from residents.
Glyphosate, best known as the active ingredient in the weed killer Roundup, has been the subject of many studies and legal challenges regarding its potential to cause cancer, specifically non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Its environmental damage, particularly to soil quality, is also well documented.
Rewilding in order to promote greater biodiversity has been championed by the nearby Knepp Estate 20 miles away, where Isabella Tree has transformed a struggling farm into a wildlife haven – and inspired thousands of landowners, large and small, to rewild.
But the trend for leaving nature to its own devices in order to create a habitat for plants and animals to thrive has become divisive – its critics include the RHS and garden presenter Alan Titchmarsh who, in a letter to the House of Lords, described the rewilding craze as an “ill-considered trend” loaded with “misleading propaganda” that will “deplete our gardens of their botanical riches” and be “catastrophic” for wildlife.
While many of Brighton & Hove’s residents support the reduction in use of herbicides, they are unimpressed with the failure to provide another solution. Having been left to navigate weed-choked pavements, there is scepticism amongst locals as to whether the policy was intended to be environmentally friendly or part of a cost saving measure by the council as it cuts back on services.
“The previously Green council was very receptive to listening to people who didn’t want to cut lawns and verges,” says Ivan Lyons, Conservative councillor for Westdene and Hove Park. “But it was also about saving money as well. Councils are a bit strapped for cash. So they basically didn’t cut anything for a couple of years.”
Each week he receives emails from residents with photos and stories about how the weeds outside their homes have become a blight. Ruth White’s 86-year-old father-in-law Norman experienced a bad fall last year after tripping over weeds near his home. At the time they reported the accident to the Green led council who said they bore no responsibility.
Lesley Fallowfield, a professor at Brighton & Sussex Medical School, ended up in A&E after tripping on weeds outside the home she has lived in for 30 years. She spent six weeks wearing an orthopaedic boot and crutches.
“I think that the council’s neglecting to maintain our pavements and verges are using ‘being eco-friendly’ as a disguise for saving money but savings on things like this just result in other costs to the hard-pressed NHS through treatment of trips and falls,” she says.
There has also been a spike in vet visits in the area, with dog owners reporting that grass seed has become stuck in their pet’s ears and paws. And driving in the area has become difficult as the size of verges often makes it difficult to see around corners.
Lyons has run 257 marathons to date, but says that he would never train on the streets around his home out of fear of falling. As a result of the reports of accidents he says the Green council then decided to employ some people to pull out the weeds. “It’s laughable. There’s more pavements and roads from here to the top of Scotland and a handful of people maintaining them.”
So many locals have taken matters into their own hands, including Ruth White who now weeds the pavements herself. However, there is a concern that some residents are using the very insecticides that the Green Party was trying to curb the use of.
It isn’t the service expected by those living in one of the highest council tax areas in the country.
“We’re paying around £3k a year for council tax and you wonder what you’re getting for it,” says one resident. “I asked for our road to be done and they did turn up about a year later. But by that time I’d had to do it myself for safety reasons.”
In the May local elections the Green party lost to Labour. “Getting weeds back under control in Brighton & Hove is a top priority for our new Labour administration,” Labour councillor Tim Rowkins told The Telegraph.
The ban on glyphosate in 2019 emerged from a cross party consensus when the Council was under no overall political control. “While well-intentioned – to reduce the use of chemicals and enhance biodiversity – there was no proper contingency plan, and the issue has simply not been treated as a priority since,” he says.
The Labour-led council are now trialling new methods and machinery including mechanical sweepers, weed rippers and specialist strimmers, and looking at a hot water removal system from Finland not currently being used in the UK.
“We are currently working on a new weed management policy with a view to deploying resources much more effectively, as well as identifying any additional needs and preventative measures we can take early in the spring when weeds take root,” adds Rowkins.
“Our priority is to ensure our streets, pavements and environment are safe and accessible for residents and to limit damage to highway infrastructure, while also welcoming the net gains for biodiversity that come from a reduction in the use of herbicides.” However, not enough is being done, says Lyons.
“They’re following the previous council’s policy of no cutting of verges between April and September and operating a traffic light system. So if something is flagged red they will go out and clear the weeds up, but if it’s yellow or green then they won’t.”
A photograph of a bench on Goldstone Crescent, Hove taken two days earlier shows that it has become so overgrown you’d struggle to reach it let alone sit on it. However when we visit the site it has been trimmed back, clearly having met the red light threshold.
Some residents worry about the damage as a result of a policy of neglect. “After three years of nothing being done, the curbs are starting to lift from large roots of trees that haven’t been pollarded. And the pavement is more uneven,” said one. “If they’ve been trying to save money then it’s a false saving in the long run. It’s going to cost them a fortune to put it right.”
With street drains also overgrown another resident adds: “This isn’t about rewilding, but laziness.” While Lyons says the situation has improved since the Greens were voted out, he says: “It’s gone from awful to shoddy. There’s still work to be done.
“Brighton has always had a bit of an edgy place, if you think back to the mods and the rockers. But now when people visit it just looks like a dump.”