Weed spraying update

For some weeks now, my Lib Dem colleagues and I have been raising the extent of weeds across the City and the lack of weed spraying.  I have found weeds in some parts of the City that are literally shoulder high and foot high is not at all unusual. 

For some people this may not be a big issue.  But the volume of complaints individual councillors have received shows that it is bigger than you might expect.  Some complaints are around the fact that weeds make it difficult for some with limited mobility, or for people pushing a shopping trolley or a pram (try going too near a thick patch of growth and see what happeens to a small wheel).  Other people's complaints have been more about appearance.  People are proud of their City and don't like to see it looking bad (I have had remarks for example about feeling the need to apologise to visitors)

Anyway, research showed the programme this year had a start date of 1 July (although that didn't mean starting everywhere on the same date) and would be a single spray

We felt that wasn't enough and put some pressure on to, at the very least, get the start date moved forward.  People had remarked that parts of the City looked like a jungle

Opposition members don't make the decisions.  That is what the administration does.  However we can attempt to persuade which is what we did this time, with a series of motions to committees and so on.

Anyway, the good news is that the weed spraying programme has had its start date pulled foward to mid June (now in other words).  So we were successful. 

The bad news is that because it is a six week programme and the people doing the spraying have to move from one area to another, depending on where the starting place is there will still be some parts of the City that don't get their weeds sprayed until the end of July . 

At last night's environment committee we heard a lot about how the programme had started and the fact that there were quad bikes, but nothing about which particular areas the staff were doing first.  I am firing off a question about that this morning and will post if/when I get an answer as what most residents are actually asking is not when the programme kicks off in general but when they will get their area done.