Brighton MP Sian Berry yesterday introduced a bill in parliament that would ban local councils and other public authorities from using pesticides.
Many organisations, PAN UK especially, have been fighting hard to get the UK government to stop their use of pesticides to control weeds in local spaces.
This bill will next be debated formally in April 2025 where the hope would be that there is cross-party support for the new bill.
In the UK we don't have to look very far to find a country that has successfully managed to move away from using pesticides to manage their weeds - France have been pesticide free in many areas and are aiming to reduce their overall use by 50% by 2030. There has also been a lot said about Paris' own green transition.
Can Councils Cope Without Glyphosate and Pesticides?
Lots has been said too about whether our UK councils can infact cope if a ban on pesticides is to be enforced. This becomes a bit of a political potato, with many pointing their fingers at the supposed failure when Brighton struggled to control their weeds, and their subsequent return to pesticides. However, a lot of this was due to the way in which they made the switch. PAN UK made a brilliant write up about why Brighton & Hove Council's return to pesticides failed.
When a council makes such a big switch, it's not a simple case of just stopping their use of pesticides overnight. A lot of careful planning and strategy needs to be implemented. For example, it is far better to slowly reduce the amount of Glyphosate or herbicide sprayed, over a period of time, instead of going "cold turkey".
Slowly introducing alternative, organic weed control methods - such as our Foamstream solution - is a far more sensible and sustainable approach.
If a council doesn't take the proper approach to this (which we feel Brighton failed to do previously), it can severely backfire and make it look like we really do need to make use of pesticides, when that clearly isn't the case. What is definitely needed is a proper, strategic route towards shifting away from the use of environmentally harmful chemicals.
We hope that come April 2025 this bill comes into force - and councils and other local authorities have to stop using pesticides going forward!
