Weeds the main cause of pavement damage, Brighton & Hove council says

Weeds are "the primary cause of damage" to pavements, the council says

Brighton and Hove City Council says it is spending £50,000 each month repairing pavements, with weeds being "the primary cause of damage".

Labour's Tim Rowkins, chair of the environment committee, said: "We have a backlog of repairs totalling £60m."

In January the council voted to reintroduce the use of a previously banned weedkiller.

The authority had stopped the use of glyphosate in 2019 after it was linked to cancer and a decline in bees.

Mr Rowkins told a council budget meeting: "Uncontrolled weed growth is one of the primary causes of damage to our pavements.

"We currently spend £50,000 a month on reactive repairs to pavements."

Mr Rowkins, chair of the City Environment, South Downs and the Sea Committee, was responding to an attempt by the Greens to divert money from weedkiller use, the Local Democracy Reporting Service says.

Previously, Mr Rowkins said: "Parts of the city are completely wild and many of our residents - wheelchair users, parents and carers with buggies, those with visual or mobility impairments - simply can't travel the distance of their own street safely."

Green councillor Kerry Pickett told a council budget meeting on Thursday that scores of wildlife and environmental groups were against the return of the herbicide.

She said: "I'd like to ask that the council listens to these voices and responds by taking the right course of action, which is to reconsider the £266,000 set aside for - in Brighton and Hove Labour's own words - 'harmful glyphosate'.

Labour councillor Theresa Fowler said glyphosate would not be used in green spaces and parks but on pavements which, she said, "are not meant to be rewilded".

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