Weeding Update

We have now completed our Weeding Programme for 2023 and are working on finalising the programme for 2024 and it will be uploaded to the website soon.

The programme is based on two attendances on each road by the dedicated Weeding Teams over the course of the programme which runs from March to November. The list of roads are derived from information gathered from our systems and through your reports of the most affected roads.

However, this does not mean that other roads will not be attended to. The Street Cleansing Teams will remove low level weeds on roads as part of their routine Cleansing activities, and additionally if we receive a report of weeds through our FixMyStreet tool, then we will prioritise by severity and a reactive team will attend.

As you may be aware, we have stopped the use of Glyphosate as our weed treatment method and now remove weeds manually, unless they are hazardous like Japanese Knotweed in which case we will have to use Glyphosate.

The manual removal of weeds is a more labour intensive process and takes longer, so we have extended the programme to start earlier and finish later in the year. Additionally, we recruit more staff during the season to carry out the service so it does not affect any other service, and will provide more regular updates on our websites to keep you informed.

To complement the Weeding Teams, we also launched a Deep Cleanse programme to run alongside the weeding programme. The Deep Cleanse programme which incorporates road closures on heavily parked roads that restrict cleansing and weed removal.

The road closures mean we can co-ordinate other activities in the road in addition to the weed removal, such as removal of detritus, gully cleansing and graffiti removal.

We ask that residents wait for the programme to attend each road, but if it is felt that a location needs urgent attention, then a request should be made via FixMyStreet.