Merton Green Party vehemently disagrees with Merton Council’s decision to start spraying glyphosate in 120 of the 150 roads who belong to the highly successful Merton Garden Streets scheme.

Up until January, the Council had agreed to a no-spray approach, so long as volunteers hand-weeded. Then, they suddenly issued the Merton Garden Streets Project Manager with a 30-day notice to prepare and provide information and guidelines for all Coordinators – who were, in turn, required to poll all residents on their respective roads – saying that a no-spray approach would continue only if a majority of residents on a road endorse such an approach and a group of volunteers commit to take on the manual weeding.

With such a short window of opportunity, only 30 Coordinators managed to obtain the majority needed. Therefore, the hard work that hundreds of people have put into growing attractive, pollinator-friendly plants in tree pits could soon be – by and large – obliterated.

We urge the Council to rethink their decision. Apart from stem injection into invasive species and some targeted spot spraying, Transport for London, and the London Boroughs of Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Westminster and Lambeth, are using a range of manual, mechanical, and thermal methods to move away from the use of dangerous chemicals. We see no good reason for Merton Council to take the regressive step that they have chosen – especially in the midst of a biodiversity crisis.