Spraying of herbicides continues unabated in Milton Keynes! Will we see real change in 2026?
On Friday 19th September I saw the herbicide spraying mini tractor, with its huge drum of pesticides on the back, in action again outside the first school in Loughton, Milton Keynes, for what I believe to be the 6th time this year.
It is apparent that to date our petition with its over 26,000 signatures hasn’t led to any reduction at all in the amount of pesticides sprayed. On the contrary, we believe the spraying is far worse this year under the new MKCC landscape contractor Glendale.
While we wait impatiently for news of the MKCC draft Integrated Pesticide Management (IPM) policy and the publication of the Bucks and Milton Keynes LNRS (Local Nature Recovery Strategy) in October, which is chaired by the Parks Trust (the Trust manages 6000 acres of our green spaces and 80 miles of our verges), and which we hope very much will include a strong commitment to reduce radically the use of pesticides in our parks, our schools and estates - I thought I would summarise the action we have taken so far :-
May 2024. Launch of Pesticide free Milton Keynes petition with the support of Professor Dave Goulson, Parkinson’s UK, Butterfly Conservation, MK Green Party, PAN UK, MK CAN. Today it has 26,206 online signatures and ca 100 hard signatures
November 2024. Addressed MKCC Cabinet about the Pesticide free Milton Keynes campaign
November 2024. Nick Mole, PAN UK and I presented MK Full Council with the petition and a box folder of evidence, multiple photos of spraying with date and location, statistics about the catastrophic declines in nature, the health risks as published by Breast Cancer UK, Parkinson’s UK etc, a list of questions for council, a request to meet with council to work collaboratively. (This box folder of evidence was destroyed in June 2025 before the new draft pesticide policy has come before council - apology received from MKCC and an offer to reproduce the evidence).
2024 - 2025 Presentations made to Woburn Sands Town Council, Aspley Guise Parish Council, Loughton and Great Holm Parish Council about the catastrophic declines in nature and the health risks of spraying herbicides and the urgent need to manage our urban green landscaping in a nature friendly way.
4 February 2025 and 18 June 2025 our campaign group had meetings with Chris Bridgman, Vice Chair of the Parks Trust Board and Chair of the operational strategy committee. We presented him with evidence of continued widespread spraying in our parks, e.g. in playgrounds, around trees, under hedges etc. During Summer 25 we have been monitoring the spraying in our parks and shall feedback to him in Autumn.
March 2025. Gathered evidence of spraying in play parks for the Pesticide Collaboration and PAN UK. The report with results will be published in November 25.
May / June 25 Report with photos of spraying sent to MKCC.
7 June 2025. Raised awareness of our Pesticide free Milton Keynes campaign at Bow Brickhill Fayre
14 June 2025. Raised awareness of our Pesticide free Milton Keynes campaign in Central Milton Keynes as part of Green Week
18 June 2025. Question asked to MK Full Council - basically when will we see a radical reduction of the use of pesticides in our city - our evidence contradicts their assertion that they only spray on hard landscaping? The new IPM policy will come before the Environment committee December 2025.
July 2025. Email written to Emma Hardy, Government Minister ic Chemicals at DEFRA after I saw a group of school children with their teacher sitting on the grass in the heatwave under a tree, the base of which has been sprayed multiple times this year. I offered to meet with her and show her my evidence of widespread spraying and to try to convince her that the only way forward is to introduce legislation to make it illegal to sell weedkillers to the public and to make it illegal to spray in our villages, towns and cities. As long as there is an option to spray the landscape contractors will continue to spray. If France and Denmark can manage to maintain their cities without using herbicides then so can we! In Germany the sale of weedkillers to the public is also not allowed.
5 June 2025. I attended the Integrated Weed Management Conference hosted by Kersten UK in Birmingham to learn about the alternative technologies to deal with unwanted plant growth in urban areas.
2024 / 2025 Our campaign group members wrote articles for local magazines in Woburn Sands, Wavendon and Loughton.
4 August 2025. Meeting with Councillor Kerrie Bradburn, Chair of MKCC Environment Committee. We presented her with our evidence of widespread spraying in Milton Keynes. We are waiting to hear the outcomes of her follow up meeting with MKCC officers on 17 September 2025
14 June 2025. Professor Michael Antoniou from Kings College London, co author of the Global Glyphosate Study, which shows conclusively that exposure to glyphosate and its co-formulants, even at the ADI (acceptable daily intake), leads to an increase in tumours, wrote to me giving us his strong support for our campaign - “Huge thanks for championing such a laudable cause in your area” and refuting the arguments put forward by MKCC which questioned the relevance of the study to Milton Keynes. We already have the strong support of one of the UK’s leading experts on insects, Professor Dave Goulson. Now we have the medical expert on board!
A huge thanks to our supporters of Pesticide Free Milton Keynes. We can only hope that we will see real change in 2026!
Judith Heinemann, Milton Keynes, 22 September 2025