£950k plans to clean up parks and highways

An additional £950,000 may be used to fund more services to improve Bath’s streets, parks and highways.

While there has been additional investment in street cleansing over the last two years, neighbourhood services, which include highways maintenance, waste, cleansing, fleet, parks and grounds, have had funding cuts over the last ten years.

A report before cabinet, which meets on July 20 to discuss the matter, recommends investing further in neighbourhood services to improve standards and reinstate some services. And it also recommends that the council never again uses glyphosate to control street weeds and instead prioritises funding for mechanical and manual weed removal for street weeds.

Glyphosate will still be needed in some circumstances, such as in treating giant hogweed and Japanese knotweed.

Cllr Dave Wood, cabinet member for neighbourhood services, said: “In common with every local authority, Bath and North East Somerset Council has had to make huge cuts to services in order to balance its budgets over the last 10 years, which has had an impact on services like highways maintenance, street cleansing and parks.

“To reverse this we invested in additional street cleansing and more main road litter picking in rural areas, this year.

“But we want to do more to improve the quality of our environment and that means more investment in our neighbourhood services.

“I am particularly pleased to see the recommendation to stop using glyphosate to control street weeds which is better for our wildlife and in line with our commitment to tackling the climate and ecological emergency.”