COUNCILLORS are calling for a list of opted-out streets to be published, after residents have witnessed multiple roads erroneously sprayed with the ‘toxic’ chemical
Green Party councillors are calling on the Labour administration to take immediate action on what they are calling “shambolic” failures in the council’s implementation of their glyphosate opt-out scheme. Multiple groups of residents, who went through the process of opting out their roads and were prepared to manually de-weed paths themselves, have seen the council go back on its promises and had glyphosate sprayed outside their houses against their wishes.
Glyphosate is a herbicide, which was previously banned in Brighton & Hove under the 2019 Labour administration, following a public campaign. It has been identified as being ‘probably carcinogenic’1 and has known impacts on the environment and biodiversity, with some campaigners linking its use to falling numbers of starlings in the city2.
Labour re-introduced the use of glyphosate in Brighton & Hove last year, going against a promise in their own manifesto, which described the chemical as ‘harmful’. Calls at the time from Greens and other campaigners, to allow concerned residents to opt their streets out of being sprayed, were ignored. Earlier this year, the Labour administration finally relented and announced a limited opt-out scheme, which many streets signed up to.
Greens Councillors are demanding that the council urgently stop their contractors from spraying glyphosate on opted-out streets and publish a full list of roads that are in the opt-out scheme, so residents can see what parts of the city shouldn’t be sprayed. They are also calling for an investigation into how these streets were erroneously sprayed in the first place and for Labour to publicly apologise to residents whose wishes have been ignored.
Kerry Pickett, Green Shadow Member for Environment said:
“People have been severely let down by Labour’s failures in implementing this much-requested opt-out scheme, which already came a year too late. Residents have gone through the effort of collecting signatures and organising volunteers, in return for a promise that their streets won’t be sprayed with toxic chemicals.To then break this promise is a huge betrayal of trust.
“Labour need to take urgent action to stop their contractors from spraying on streets that were supposed to be protected, and publish a full list of opted-out streets. Residents deserve answers as to how this was allowed to happen and need a full apology for being so badly let down by the council.”
NOTES
- Glyphosate – Pesticide Action Network: https://www.pan-uk.org/glyphosate/ ↩︎
- Brighton: Starling numbers have ‘halved’ since weedkiller used again – The Argus https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/25005140.brighton-starling-numbers-halved-since-weedkiller-used/ ↩︎