Sefton Council is responsible for keeping weed growth on its land under control, including highways, parks, public open spaces and memorial gardens.
We do this through a continual, year-long programme of prevention and removal using a combination of machinery, hand weeding and herbicides.
Attractive
Keeping Sefton weed-free ensures the Borough remains attractive for residents, businesses, visitors, and potential investors
To improve weed control, the Council has drawn up a new Weeds Action Plan.
Action
The Weeds Action Plan sets out how the Council will carry out regular, targeted, safe herbicide use, between March and October, to kill weed growth public areas.
We will be community, personal and landowner responsibility for preventing weeds and litter. This includes preventing fly-tipping, promoting neighbourhood cleanliness and properly maintaining sites.
Tackle
To help implement the Plan, the Council has taken on extra temporary staff to tackle weeds and is planning to take on and train 60 young people through the Government’s Kickstart Job Creation Scheme.
The Council uses targeted systemic weed-killers. These are sprayed onto the growing plants’ leaves from where they make their way back to the roots and kill the plant.
Around 14 days later, when the weed-killer has had time to work, the Council’s teams return and remove the dead plants.
This process may have to be carried out more than once in each area.
Sefton is a diverse Borough with rich and widespread green-spaces and some unique or rare habitats.
Sefton Council is committed to striking a balance that ensures the Borough is at its best for people who live and work here, for visitors and for our plants and wildlife too.
This means we have to balance our work to combat weed growth with the need to protect and preserve Sefton’s rich environment.
Although, like most Councils, we use the targeted spraying of systematic weed killer within tight regulations, this work is suspended when wet or windy weather could mean unwanted spread or run off.
During longer periods of wet or windy weather during the March to October spraying period this can mean greater weed growth than we would like. However, we do aim to return to areas that we have been unable to treat to get weed control back on schedule.
To report significant weed growth in your area please e-mail Contact@sefton.gov.uk ensuring you include the word "weeds" in the subject title of your email.
Also give some detail of the exact location in your email so our Officers can arrange for inspection.
Please note that once weeds have been sprayed they must remain in place for at least 2 weeks to allow die back to reach the roots and prevent re-growth.
Once they get a foothold, weeds can spread quickly and easily.
Regularly spending a few minutes clearing weeds on and around your home, your business or your land helps prevent them spreading.
This means the Council can concentrate on the areas where weeds are most difficult to control.
Different elements of weed control are carried out by staff in the Council's, Cleansing, Housing and Green Sefton teams, as well as by the Authority's external contractors