There are too many weeds growing in Kildare's towns

Kildare County Council has been criticised for not doing enough to tackle tiger growth of weeds on town centre pavements.

It came from Naas councillor Seamie Moore, who said that climate action and biodiversity policies should not be used as reasons for “not removing annual vegetations of all types from town centre pavements, hard surfaces and public realm areas.

He said failure to tackle this problem is “lowering good all-round environmental management standards” and undermines public support for keeping public areas clean.

He told a KCC meeting that leaving weeds in situ is “an easy way out" and he predicted that if the situation is tolerated “we’ll have tumbleweed coming down the main streets and people won’t be able to do anything about it.”

He said the council should do more to ensure the streets look presentable.

“To have weeds growing under windows is shameful,” he said.

Cllr Padraig McEvoy said that biodiversity policies are are aimed at addressing the fact that 52% of living species are in decline and  Cllr Peter Hamilton said that pesticide control is needed to ensure that enough food is produced globally.

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KCC official Celina Barrett said that vegetation in these areas is physically removed and regrowth happens because there is no spraying.

She said if sprays are deployed then these will wash away into water courses creating more problems.

She also said that the council had been requested by the councillors to  reduce the use of pesticides particularly glyphosate due to the negative effects on public health and biodiversity being highlighted by their use. 

“The consequence of this is that to control these, mechanical or organic methods have to be used. These do not provide the same level of control and regrowth is faster. The methods are also more resource heavy and it is not possible to dedicate more resources to correct this.”