Hounslow Highways had to abandon using Glyphosate to kill weeds this year because of its environmental impact. The only alternative they could see, after evaluating different ways of dealing with weeds, was men on the street with hoes and shovels.Not ideal because hoeing just takes off the tops. This is enormously time consuming and the guys on the ground said they could only do a couple of streets properly during a day.The problem was exacerbated by lots of rain meaning the weeds grew and seeded quickly. They decided in the end that the only way that they could do it was by including extra men in the fortnightly ward based cleansing. This has obviously been inadequate. Now the plan is that they will do a street when they do the deep cleanse (schedule on their web site). However they plan to leave Chiswick until leaves have come down, otherwise the deep cleanse is pointless. Obviously all not at all satisfactory. They are now evaluating this with LBH to see if there can be a better way next year. Having been complaining at them for some months about weeds, I do have some sympathy for them because even if they had the money to vastly improve their resources it is still an uphill job. Personally I weed around my immediate area. And actually some of the weeds are lovely! Given the difficulties, maybe next year the priority should be to make sure the weeds in the pavements are dealt with (although some are too small to get out I found), and a community effort to deal with the other weeds.
Iris Hill ● 2253d