Urban jungle taming

This year the council did not carry out its usual practice of spraying weeds on the outer and inner edge of pavements in the spring. On health and environmental grounds this is probably a welcome development, but in some areas it has resulted in an overgrowth of weeds that look unsightly and will begin to damage the pavement edges if they are left to their own devices. They can now only be tackled the hard way – by hand.

I raised this briefly at the AGM last week, and as a result a few of us are planning to get started on weed removal this Sunday, 13^th December. It would be good to get more people involved, so we are inviting anyone interested to meet on the corner of St Stephen’s Road at 10.30.  We will aim to finish around 12.00, and if there is enough interest we may be able to organize a replay before Christmas.  At this stage it’s hard to gauge how difficult it will be – some of the tougher beasts will just have to be chopped off at pavement level, but others should be easier to uproot. We will also be picking up litter and dead leaves if they have drifted thickly on to the pavements.

As current government guidelines only allow six people to get together, we will break into groups and spread out along Camden Road if there are more than six. I have some hi-vis gilets, and the council will be supplying bags, which they will collect later, as well as some tools and gloves, but if people could bring any trowels, weed removers etc. that they find useful, that would be good. Also a flask of something hot perhaps – we could spend ten minutes together at the end if people would like to do that (at an appropriate distance of course). 

Here’s the type of thing we will tackle.

If the weather is really wet or snowy we will have to make a new date.

Julie Platt.