Rolling record of meetings and correspondence with Cambridge City Council and Cambridgeshire County Council, as well as key events relevant to the development of our campaign in 2020 and earlier. Copies of our public questions to council committee meetings, and answers, where received, have now been moved to a separate record. See here. Our records for 2022 (current year), and 2021 are available in separate blog entries.
8 December 2020
Cambridge Independent article by Paul Brackley on herbicides in Cambridge including an interview with Nick Mole at PAN-UK Pesticide-free Towns https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/news/controversial-chemical-glyphosate-still-being-sprayed-by-councils-in-cambridgeshire-9144325/
30 November 2020
PFC meeting with Katie Porrer & Josh Matthews City, Lib Dem Councillors, discussed use of herbicides on streets, parks and pavements, and both insecticides and herbicides in schools and private homes. Both were very supportive of our objectives.
19 November 2020
PFC meeting with Katie Thornburrow (Labour City Councillor for Open Spaces), and Guy Belcher (Biodiversity Officer), together with operatives. Both Thornburrow and Belcher were very supportive of PFC’s aims.
Guy Belcher reported on Cambridge University biodiversity initiative, Cambridge Nature Network vision and interactions with Keep Britain Tidy and The Bedford Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust. We were told that herbicide spraying on verges will cease ‘soon’, but were still unable to get a firm date. He told us that spraying in parks and open spaces stopped last year, pathways and infrastructure are still being sprayed for ‘health and safety’ reasons (e.g,. ‘trip hazards’).
Cllr Thornburrow told us that the main obstacle for stopping spraying on roads and pavements was that the final decision rested with County Council, and also that it was difficult technically to avoid spraying around electric points and other street infrastructure, with further obstacles being presented by bad state of repair of pavements etc. She told us that there are more complaints about lack of weed control than the use of herbicides! She suggested that we might contribute something to Cambridge Matters.
19 October 2020
PFC launched our website! https://www.pesticidefreecambridge.org/
Thanks to everyone who helped get this off the ground!
14 October 2020
PFC email correspondence with Councillor Katie Thornburrow (Labour Councillor for Open spaces) following her tweet saying that the city council are going to phase out pesticides on the verges they manage for the County. We asked for more detail and clarity as to when this will actually happen. CLEF forwarded us the following email from Councillor Thornburrow (15 October)
“It was in 2018 that the City Council ceased using herbicides on all our own grounds, but that only represents about 6% of land in Cambridge, but it is still a huge achievement. Since then the officers have been working with highways to cease the use of herbicides on the green verges owned by Highways where the City Council has a service agreement to maintain them. This is being done alongside work with On The Verge Cambridge to consider wildflower planting where appropriate, and much more biodiversity. We also are running a year of pollination awareness but this is greatly hindered by the distancing restriction due to the pandemic, but it is still progressing”.
11 October 2020
PFC email to Cllr Katie Thornburrow sending information on non-chemical alternatives to ‘weed’ control.
5 May 2020
Individual member of PFC received reply from Daniel Zeichner in response to their email of 30 April.
" Thank you for getting in touch and raising these very important issues. I too was extremely pleased to see Cambridge City Council end the use of glyphosate-based weed control in parks and I want to see further limits put on which chemicals are used in Cambridge and the rest of the UK. I have long called for greater restrictions on insecticides and pesticides and, as you may be aware, since becoming a Member of Parliament I have been proud to become a ‘Species Champion’ for the Ruderal bumblebee and to attend the annual UK Bee Summit. Bees and other pollinators are vital for our environment and our farming industry. The decline of bees across the world is a cause of great environmental concern with loss of habitats and an increase in the use of pesticides as main contributors. The government must ensure that our environment and biodiversity are central to future agricultural policies. Part of my new role as the Shadow Minister for farming is looking at sustainable agriculture and I have been working with multiple stakeholders on the uses of pesticides and insecticides, to see how Britain can move to safer and more environmentally friendly methods of farming. I have serious concerns over our exit from the EU and what this means for the use of pesticides. The EU's extensive list of banned and dangerous chemicals has expanded to over 21,000 substances and this has played a huge role in removing these chemicals from the UK. I will be pressing the Government to ensure we continue to abide by these and add to the list where necessary. I am of course happy to raise these very serious points with George Eustice during our meetings and I greatly welcome your expertise on this. Thank you again for getting in touch and for raising this with me, I hope that you are keeping well.
Best wishes, Daniel Zeichner Member of Parliament for Cambridge daniel@danielzeichner.co.uk @DanielZeichner www.danielzeichner.co.uk"
30 April 2020
Individual member of PFC emailed Cllr Rosy Moore in her capacity as Councillor for Coleridge Ward, and also as Executive Councillor for Climate Change, Environment and City Centre, about the problem of insecticide powders applied by private individuals on Cambridge’s streets and pavements. No reply. Followed up on 4 Feb 2021. No reply.
30 April 2020
Individual member of PFC emailed Cllr Mike Davey in his capacity as Councillor for Petersfield about the problem of insecticide powder being applied by members of the public on Cambridge’s public streets and pavement, highlighting the much higher levels of toxicity of such chemicals when compared to glyphosate that has dominated recent campaigns and media attention. No reply.
30 April 2020
Individual member of PFC emailed Daniel Zeichner, Cambridge MP about the problem of insecticide powder being applied by members of the public on Cambridge’s public streets and pavement, highlighting the much higher levels of toxicity of such chemicals when compared to glyphosate that has dominated recent campaigns and media attention. Received supportive response and said was ‘happy to raise these very serious points with George Eustice during our meetings and I greatly welcome your expertise on this’ (see entry for 5 May 2020).
October 2019
Cambridge City Council agrees to stop using herbicides in city parks, playgrounds and open spaces. https://www.cambridge.gov.uk/restricted-use-of-herbicides;
July 2019
Motion to the city council to ban pesticides in Cambridge proposed by Cllr Martinelli with an original target of 2022 - https://democracy.cambridge.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=116&MId=3600&Ver=4
However, in May 2021, we learnt that the original reference to 2022 was subsequently removed in an amendment by Cllr Thornburrow before the motion was put forward (see entry for 27 May 2021) . So unfortunately the commitment to phase out herbicides effectively proceeded with no clear timeframe given. If the original motion had been passed then the city council would have resolved to:
Commit to stopping all use of pesticides on Cambridge City Council's open spaces within the next year
Bring a report to the Environment and Community Scrutiny Committee defining a strategy for the complete phase out of pesticide use by the end of 2022
Establish a stakeholder forum including Cambridgeshire County Council, members of the public and local landowners to assist in implementing the strategy.’
The amended motion REMOVED certain clauses, amongst them being:
Exposure to pesticides is associated with human disease, harm to wildlife and contamination of our natural resources.
Safe and effective alternatives to the use of chemical pesticides exist and are in use by other local authorities who have committed to becoming pesticide-free.
Trials this year of stopping herbicide use in a number of parks in Cambridge have been successful without significant negative impact on either the quality of the area or the Council's resources.’
In the form in which the motion passed it leaves the commitment to making Cambridge pesticide-free completely open-ended. In reality, all the council committed to do was to discuss and consult further.
22 May 2019
Labour’s declaration of a biodiversity emergence at council meeting. https://www.cambridge.gov.uk/media/7485/motion-to-declare-a-biodiversity-emergency-2019-05.pdf
January 2019
Labour’s declaration of a climate emergency at council meeting in January 2019 following petition of Extinction Rebellion, and the agreement that this should be widened to a declaration of a biodiversity emergency, to be discussed further at the next council meeting on 22 May 2019
12 July 2018
PFC contacted Cambridge Green Party to ask what they are doing to tackle the problem of Local Authority and private use of herbicides and insecticides in Cambridge, and raised the issue in particular of the much higher toxicity of insecticides than glyphosate-based herbicides despite the media attention to the latter. Response included reference to Green Councillor Oscar Gillespie ‘s previous questions at council meetings about the “risk of river contamination by pesticides used on farms upstream of the Cam and also potentially Hobson's Brook,” and the need to “put pressure on the local farmers to ensure that they don't risk contamination of these waterways as the insect ecosystem is far too fragile at the moment and they form part of the foundation of the green corridors", also the need to monitor "pesticide levels, to ensure that we can flag any warnings early on, and avoid the level of contamination of the Waveney and the Tame.” Also mention of Cllr Gillespie having “repeatedly called for weedkiller use, in particular glyphosates, to be reduced and referred to the trial of vinegar as weedkiller in Bristol which, depending on the findings, may turn out to be an option for Cambridge". Mention also of the recent trial in Abbey ward of avoiding weed killer about street furniture that may lead to a decision soon in Cambridge (see page 12 of the following report): https://www.cambridge.gov.uk/sites/default/files/june_od_for_web.pdf”
This page is currently under construction. Please check back in the next few days for a full record of activities pre 2018.