Helping out at Melbourne Street Community Garden

We had a lovely morning at Melbourne Street Community Garden in Highfields, helping Aamenah who co-ordinates the volunteers looking after the garden. They took over the site quite recently and had quite a challenge even opening the gate because of the brambles at first! They've been making good progress in clearing and we helped out by getting the main raised bed ready to plant, creating a small herb bed, spreading woodchip and cutting back the scrub at the back of the garden.

 

Pesticide spraying

At a recent Parish Council meeting in my village the PC voted to carry on spraying round the village tennis court and play area with weedkiller.  When I enquired what the weedkiller is that they use I was told it was glyphosate and I was also told that it was ok because it is what the County Council use.

I wrote to Leicester City Council and to Leicestershire County Council asking them to stop spraying with glyphosate as lots of other Councils have already stopped spraying.

Leicestershire County Council responded saying they had put the spraying (of the highways) on hold and it was under review and they would let me know the result of the review and their decision about spraying.

Leicester City Council were not quite so helpful in as much as they are carrying on spraying and explained their reasons why they had to.  Basically, they said they had tried and researched other methods but they were too costly and time consuming so they needed to keep spraying.

This is an ongoing project and we are formulating our response to Leicester City Council at the moment.  Watch this space….