TWO announcements after 3 years campaigning and nearly 32 THOUSAND signatures To this petition later.
1) BISHOPS LYDEARD
A group of citizens contacted me to say they were inspired by my petition, and as a result set up their own citizens watchdog group to hold the parish council of Bishops Lydeard to account. They held a vote of NO CONFIDENCE in the Green Party PC Chairman, who had bizarrely denied the use of toxic glyphosate in the local press in a damning and unnecessary hostile response to my campaign.
The Parish records of accounts and discussion with the village Lengthsman, told a very different story.
After it was exposed toxic glyphosate was being used, it is my understanding that the PC initially agreed it would no longer use Toxic herbicides for weed control around the village.
However, according to the MINUTES of the last parish council meeting in April 2024, once again the Green Party PC chair has made an instruction to the Lengthsman to ‘’try a different weedkiller’’ to clear weeds around a MUGA location - (a village games area) where CHILDREN play, and would be breathing in the toxic fumes of any herbicide being sprayed.
It seems very bizarre that once again, a councillor who proclaims to be representative of the Green Party refuses to educate himself on this subject, or inform the Parish council about the damaging toxic effects of pesticides and herbicides on our environment, contrary to Green Party manifesto. Similar to the now resigned chairman of CSL PC, the chair of BL also seems determined to deny the Climate Crisis and instead carry on with a ‘business as usual’ approach to polluting the local environment, no matter the cost to public health, pets, pollinators, soil health and other species.
I have been informed by the Parish Clerk that ONCE AGAIN, the PC has fallen for the INDUSTRY LIE by his statement to me that the PC are trying out environmentally friendly weed killers.
There are NO environmentally friendly weed killers. They do not exist.
IF the parish Lengthsman has been trying to use SALT or VINEGAR solutions then complaining they haven’t worked, they ONLY work when there is blazing hot sunshine both prior to and at least 3 days after application. They do NOT work when it’s been raining or when rain has fallen after use as it gets washed away. We have had nothing but rain, rain and more rain in Bishops Lydeard recently, so any chemical burn solutions such as salt or vinegar would not have worked.
ALTERNATIVE solutions such as investing in a steam cleaning machine is the only effective and sustainable method I am aware of.
2) COTFORD ST LUKE
The Parish Council members of CSL has ALL resigned. I am waiting to hear what steps a new PC council, (if one is even formed), will do. It initially agreed in writing to me to ‘’investigate and transition to new environmentally friendly methods for maintaining paths and pavements.’’
Sadly however, and despite strong internal opposition from some councillors, it did not dissolve its 2 year contract with a spraying contractor.
Information I obtained using FOI revealed what can only be described as a rather ongoing Machiavellian secret discussion taking place between the PC clerk and chair of CSL and the spraying operator, criticising my campaign. Presumably in fear of losing the hefty sum of money they were receiving from CSL PC.
This was despite at least two councillors of CSL strongly supporting my campaign and investigating environmentally friendly methods such as the use of steam cleaning machines. Lip service?
Going forward, ceasing spraying as promised doesn’t seem to have been authorised by the council chair, who remained determined to carry on wasting tax payers money and poisoning the village, until his recent resignation.
I very much welcome the resignation of an ineffective anti-environment, climate emergency denying, tax-payer money-wasting and blinkered CSL PC chair. I have still yet to discover if it cancelled the 2 year contract with the spraying company before they all resigned, but which I very much doubt.
If Somerset Council take over PC responsibilities permanently, then we can probably only expect spraying to continue, or even increase. This is because their representative claimed in local media in response to my campaign, that Somerset Council only uses ‘environmentally friendly herbicides’, which of course do NOT exist!!!
The battle continues, but it is one whereby more and more local citizens are pushing back against draconian ways of thinking. Some councillors appear resistant to positive change to improve our environment for ourselves and other species, including our pollinators! , whilst others are fighting for their voices to be heard and recognised above multi-trillion marketing campaigns by the likes of Bayer-Monsanto and greenwash from private environmental terror groups such as the NFU.
On a positive note, I welcome the fact that more individual councillors appear to be opposed to unnecessary routine toxic spraying. Many have climbed off the fence on this subject and are opposing spraying. Many too are educating themselves on the subject, and are increasingly interested in finding out about and using their initiatives to investigate alternative methods such as steam to keep e.g public footpaths and children's play areas wild flower free.
BIODIVERSITY
THE UK NOW HAS ONE OF THE LOWEST RATES OF BIODIVERSITY IN EUROPE and HIGHEST RATES OF DEPLETED NATURE. (Source State of Nature Report 2023)
Yet the UK continues to spray deadly cancer causing, genetic altering, respiration damaging, asthma causing, BEE KILLING chemicals both on farmland and unsustainable monoculture agriculture, and in urban areas.
This is despite more and more local councils around the country quietly opposing widespread use or banning it outright, and many more countries banning it internationally, our close friends and allies France, being one of them.
ACTIONS
1) I call on Somerset Council to confirm spraying has ceased in CSL and to deploy sustainable methods, not just in CSL, but throughout Somerset, such as steaming as used in Glastonbury and other towns to great effect and for a fraction of the money that spraying expensive toxic chemicals costs , if for example, clearing footpaths is desired.
2) I call on Bishops Lydeard PC to confirm it will instruct its Lengthsman to stop spraying ANY and ALL herbicides (named as such under the umbrella name of pesticides) and deploy environment friendly methods such making a one-off cost of purchasing a sustainable steam machine, or by manually removing unwanted wild flowers in public areas by hand going forward. (Aka conventional Gardening methods)
Perhaps there is a need to investigate employing a second lengthsman for this purpose if necessary? thus giving employment to someone, as well as saving the tax payer money on having to buy expensive chemicals, which are neither effective or sustainable.
ENVIRONMENTAL NOTE: If herbicides are used continuously over a long period of time - targeted plant species develop a resistance to them, so chemical companies such as Bayer-Monsanto suggest increasing their use (which is very good for their bank account balances, but not very good for weed control)
BEARING WITNESS to the Environmental Note:
In CSL this is exactly what happened over a six+ year period. The PC scratched its head wondering why species like pink valerian were increasing on pavements despite regular spraying with glyphosate. Their spraying contractor suggested INCREASING the rate of spray not once but TWICE over several years, and both times those plant species developed more and more RESISTANCE to glyphosate. So the PC of Cotford St Luke ended up in a situation whereby the contractor was then spraying every 2 or 3 months, with ever decreasing results. The contractor also sprayed during times of rainfall ! so it was often washed straight away down the drains and into the water courses with no effect on weeds. The tax payer and water companies funding this experiment in uneducated ignorance, but the contractor got his payment so didn’t care.
Storm drains also became clogged and caused flooding in the village from all the semi decomposing plant life blocking them, which hadn’t been removed after spraying, thus compounding the problem even further, and causing unnecessary flooding in the village.
Public awareness is increasing and people are sick and tired of poor decision making, which is harming our environment.
THIRTY TWO THOUSAND PEOPLE have responded to this LOCAL campaign to demand better from just TWO local Parish Councils, because the same madness it is going on EVERYWHERE.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND LOSS OF BIODIVERSITY IS everyone’s issue and everyone’s problem. What happens LOCALLY affects everyone at a NATIONAL level and GLOBALLY, and to date, nearly thirty two thousand signatures agree.
I call on our local PC’s and Somerset Council to recognise this and put in place long term measures for sustainable management of the local environment, because business as usual is not working.
In Love and Rage
Georgie Lyng
BSc (Honours) Environmental Studies