‘PRETTY WEEDY CITY’: Council blames record summer for Swansea’s overgrown kerbs, then admits the spraying started late

Swansea’s weed-choked kerbs this summer were down to record heat, a mild spring and a spraying contract that started late, the council has admitted.

Cllr Andrew Stevens, cabinet member for environment and infrastructure, made the admission in a written answer to councillors ahead of Thursday’s full council meeting, replying to a Conservative question headed “Swansea: A Pretty Weedy City”.

He opened by suggesting the five Conservative councillors “may have missed the record-breaking weather this summer, which followed a very mild spring”, which he said drove “excessive plant growth” across Swansea and the rest of Wales.

But he went on: “The programme has been running slightly behind schedule due to a delay in the contract award and renewal process.”

Will Thomas, Hannah Williams, Angela O’Connor, Lyndon Jones and Mark Tribe had asked whether the contract went to a firm outside Wales that subcontracted the work, and whether taxpayers were paying for jobs not done.

The contractor is Complete Weed Control, based in Cardiff, “a firm who have worked with us for many years”, Cllr Stevens said. He did not say whether any of the work was subcontracted.

There are 6,000 streets and more than 1,500km of highway to spray, and the contract is for controlling weeds rather than removing them. “Weeds die back over the weeks that follow, which is why a treated street can still look untidy for a period,” he said.

Wind and heat also stop spraying, and the contractor will go back to streets where it did not work at no extra cost.

The Conservatives’ three asks got short shrift. Weeds are sprayed outside schools “as these often bound the highway”, with a product approved for public roads applied by certified operatives. Unadopted roads are excluded, and any sprayed by mistake are not paid for. Ward-by-ward maps of no-spray areas are “not something the service recommends”.

The council’s own hot spot team has been clearing kerbs and channels by hand on the main routes, and Cllr Stevens put on record his thanks to them.

That team has kit for the job. Last summer the council bought a weed-ripping machine, a Westermann with 12 wire brushes that clears moss and weeds from pavements without chemicals, for its cleansing crews, who had already dealt with more than 1,000 weed and litter hotspots.

Spraying is the cheaper option for 1,500km of road, though, and this year the weather beat both.

Overgrown pavements and kerbs can be reported to Swansea Council through its website or a ward councillor, who can point the hot spot team at them.

The Conservatives can put a follow-up question in the chamber on Thursday.