Why Wadebridge parks have not been sprayed since 2016

Walk across a park in Wadebridge this summer and you will spot wildflowers along the edges, bees working the verges and grass left to grow a little wild in places. What you will not find is a trace of weedkiller. The town’s parks have gone almost a decade without chemical sprays, and the people who look after them say the grounds are better for it.

A decision made in 2016

Wadebridge Town Council became free from spraying in March 2016, stopping the use of chemicals across every piece of land it looks after. The change followed the arrival of Edward Treverton as Senior Groundsman, who pushed for it out of a personal conviction that the sprays simply were not needed. The council backed him, and the policy has held ever since.

The approach reaches further than weedkiller. The Parks team uses no pesticides or insecticides of any kind. In the council’s own words, the aim is to “promote the importance and value of a quality environment and its contribution to the quality of life for the community of Wadebridge”, and to let people enjoy their local green spaces while keeping the work’s impact on the environment as low as possible.

Where the ban applies

The no-spray rule covers four of the town’s biggest green spaces: Jubilee Park, Egloshayle Park, Coronation Park and Wadebridge Cemetery. It also extends to a number of grass verges the team maintains on behalf of Cornwall Council.

What the team does instead

Without chemicals to fall back on, the Parks team has changed the way it works. Weeds are tackled with a self-drive powered brush weeder, a gas flame treatment, strimmers and plenty of hand weeding. Wildflower areas are run under their own management plans. The full policy, and the methods behind it, is set out on the council’s pesticide-free page.

Some of it takes longer, and now and then it calls for an extra pair of hands. Not every job got harder, though. In parts of the wildflower areas, ground that was once strimmed every week is now cut just once a year.

A change residents have taken to

The council says it has not had a single complaint from the public or from local businesses since the policy came in. The occasional resident asks about it, and staff explain the thinking. Beyond that, the response has been quiet.

Nearly ten years on, the council reports no significant problems, says the parks look better for it and would encourage other places to “make the leap and not look back”.