Vale of Glamorgan - Weedingtech

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How Foamstream can be used to reduce herbicide use in management of Green Flag Award parks and open spaces and notably enhance the quality of outdoor spaces across your municipality.

  • Client: Vale of Glamorgan Council
  • Background: Municipality in South West Wales. Home to 130,000 residents and holder of 10 Green Flag Awards for its parks and gardens.
  • No. of machines: 1 - M1200
  • Areas Treated: Green Flag sites, country parks, open spaces, pre-treatment wildflower areas, children's play areas, hard, soft and artificial surfaces.
  • Previous methods used: Glyphosate based herbicides, pre-emergent herbicides (on suitable surfaces) and mechanical methods (hoeing, hand pulling weeds and strimming).

The Vale of Glamorgan Council

Problems

  • The council wanted to move away from using herbicides to control weeds and unwanted vegetation growth.
  • As holders of 10 Green Flag awards for their parks and green spaces, a key criteria of the award specifically looks at park management policies and how they look to reduce the use of chemicals.
  • As much of the work is done in public areas, the Vale needed a solution that was safe for use around people, including children and pets.

How we helped

Foamstream was part of a series of tests, carried out by the Vale's Park Department, of alternative methods of weed control. The methods included in the test were burning, weed ripping, brushing, hot water and Foamstream.

The result of the trial led to Foamstream being chosen as the herbicide-free weed control solution of choice based on easy of use, high efficacy and its suitability for a much wider range of surfaces than any other the alternative methods.

Foamstream has been in use in the Vale now since early 2018 and is used widely across the Vale in feature parks and sites. Since using Foamstream, the Vale become one of the best performing authorities in Wales for the quality of their outdoor spaces and has helped the Vale gain their 10 Green Flag awards this year.

Foamstream has helped the Vale position itself as a forward thinking, environmentally conscious council and they have received a huge amount of engagement from press, public and other organisations who are looking to them for guidance on adopting a herbicide-free alternative. these range from other members of the green flag network, through to authorities, landowners, housing and social services and the military. The Vale have also gained many additional spin-offs from adopting the system not originally considered such as it being an additional revenue stream for the council.

Foamstream is now a central part of the council's land management strategy. Watch Jon Greatrex talking about Foamstream as Vale's Parks and Open Spaces Officer.

To read more about why the Vale of Glamorgan adopted Foamstream and the benefits it has brought, download the full case study below.

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Read more about how Foamstream helped the Vale of Glamorgan.

Download Case Study

Interested in finding out more about safe and sustainable alternative methods of weed control?

Get in touch today for more information on how to make the change to using an alternative solution of weed control in your organisation.

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