as britain's once pristine walkways and landmarks are left to grow wild why is it time to weed out the eco-zealot councils choking our civic pride?

With its magnificent Regency architecture, totemic Royal Pavilion, and trademark pier, Brighton has long been a city synonymous with civic pride.

But take a stroll through the city centre these days and such is the profusion of weed-infested streets you could be forgiven for thinking you had stumbled on to the film set of a post-apocalyptic horror movie. Rogue vegetation is coming up between the cracks in pavements, covering up street signs, and even growing in the middle of the road.

Ever since the Green Party took control of the local council and implemented a ban on pesticides, the city has taken on an air of dreadful neglect, leaving residents to negotiate myriad hazards concealed by rampant undergrowth.

And two elderly residents have already ended up in hospital after falling victim to the hidden dangers. Their plight sparked a petition against the Greens’ urban rewilding, which has now been signed by hundreds of Brighton residents. The petition declares: ‘The weeds are dangerous in places, causing trip hazards and they are detrimental to the aesthetics of our city.’

A royal disgrace: Ever since the Green Party took control of the local council in Brighton and implemented a ban on pesticides, the city has taken on an air of dreadful neglect (pictured, weeds ruining the views of the Pavilion)

How true. But the sad thing is that Brighton is not the only city to fall victim to the allure of eco-smugness.

Gone are the days when proud mayors and councillors showed off their pristine parks and gardens, with charming floral clocks and spectacular rose gardens.

Now councils are keener to trumpet their green credentials — and let parks, graveyards and streets become displays of rampant weeds.

Leaping on to the ‘rewilding’ bandwagon, first popularised in the countryside, trendy councils across the country are banning weedkillers and letting the streets become repositories of dandelions, creeping charlie and common ragweed.

No one would deny that our use of noxious pesticides was once in danger of spiralling out of control, but there is a balance to be struck between protecting the environment and maintaining some level of order in the public realm.

Two elderly residents have already ended up in hospital after falling victim to the hidden dangers with their plight sparking a petition against the Greens' urban rewilding. Pictured: The Grand Hotel in Brighton

From Lancaster to Hexham, Frome, Hackney and Chichester, areas once well-tended have been turned into ugly blackspots, prone to gathering litter and dog mess.

And the beleagured councils responsible trot out a variety of ingenious responses when confronted by angry locals.

Brighton responded to its residents’ petition by playing the Covid card.

A council spokesman declared that the weeding and deep-cleaning schedule ‘had been badly impacted upon by the pandemic and effects of restrictions and lockdown’. Surely there’s no better time to clear the streets of weeds than when there’s no one about — during a once-in-a-century lockdown, for example?

The council has also wheeled out another lazy excuse: the weather had contributed to ‘a growth spurt’. I hate to break it to Brighton’s jobsworths but I’m afraid that’s what a traditional English summer — combining rain and sun — tends to do: make plants grow.

It’s a similar story in Cambridge. There the Labour council pledged in its manifesto before the May elections to ban herbicides on public land.

Already you can see the effect in weed-clogged roads by the kerbside. They clog up road drains, too, leading to increased flooding risk — something green enthusiasts blame on climate change, not on councils’ eco-obsession.

In Colchester, Essex, meanwhile, the council banned glyphosate-based weedkillers in parks, open spaces and hedgerows in April.

The effect has been inevitable: weeds marching along cracks in the pavement, obscuring road signs, leaping out from under walls and fences.

Unabashed, Colchester Borough Council proudly boasted that the weedkiller ban ‘supports the commitments to protect our environment in the climate emergency declaration we agreed in 2019’.

Kerb your enthusiasm: However, trendy councils across the country are leaping on to the 'rewilding' bandwagon. Pictured: Huge weeds obscuring the pavement in Cambridge

Day of the Triffids: Wild seems to be the only way in Colchester, Essex as the council banned glyphosate-based weedkillers in April letting the streets grow wild

Weed-strewn streets are the price you pay for saving the world, apparently. Many councils have also given up mowing graveyards during the summer months.

In Warrington, Cheshire, the city fathers have let grass obscure graves, to the distress of bereaved relations. When Anthony and Lesley Howlett went to lay flowers on her mother’s grave in July, they found the graveyard’s condition an ‘utter disgrace’, covered in weeds and nettles up to 3ft high.

They were particularly upset that, at the time of Lesley’s mother’s death in 2007, they were told they could not have any structures around the grave so that the council could easily ‘maintain the graveyard by mowing the grass’. 

A Warrington Borough Council spokesman was also apparently taken aback by the phenomenon of plants growing in wet weather, saying: ‘The recent damp weather, combined with warm conditions, has seen a surge in grass growth.’

Well I never!

Harrogate Borough Council in Yorkshire has jumped on the eco-bandwagon, too. Vast areas of green space, including the famous Stray, 200 acres of public parkland in the town, have been left uncut by mowers or strimmers, to let nature run free as part of the rewilding movement.

Alison Freeman, who lives near The Stray, said rewilding made the area look ‘untidy and unsightly’, adding: ‘It’s very unattractive and it has the potential to be dangerous. Beer bottles could get dumped in the long grass. It’s unusable and I can’t walk on it.

Grave error: A scruffy overgrown Warrington cemetery in Cheshire. When Anthony and Lesley Howlett went to lay flowers on her mother’s grave in July, they found the graveyard covered in weeds and nettles up to 3ft high

‘Don’t the council care about the town? They are driving Harrogate down.’

The craze has even migrated north of the Scottish border, where, in June, councils in Tayside and Fife decided to leave roadside and park grass verges uncut in a rewilding move.

Some might say that while it is not permissible to let plants run wild in a graveyard, there’s nothing wrong with a little roadside encroachment.

But not Tom Kinnaird, of Benarty Community Council. ‘First impressions count and some of these areas are at entrances to Fife,’ he says. ‘If people see that the council doesn’t care, then they don’t care themselves.

‘You get increased littering from that. Some of the grass can reach quite a height and block the view of drivers at T-junctions.’

Grass verges may sound a fairly limited area of land but, in fact, they amount to 1.2 per cent of Great Britain. Let all those verges go wild and there will be a major impact on the look of the country.

Again and again, taking the green obsession too far leads to contradictions within the eco-world’s many strands.

Greens, quite understandably, are very keen on cycling as opposed to driving. But what happens when you let cycle lanes fall prey to the rewilding obsession? You get dangerous cycle lanes and fewer cyclists.

In July, in Dorset, Mike Walter from Weymouth said how, on a short bike ride to the seafront from Upwey, he had been quite surprised at how overgrown the cycle paths were: ‘In places, the path was no more than 18 in wide! It was hard to social distance at all.

‘I understand that the council are trying to help wildlife, but they surely must show some common sense; there is no reason that the edges of the paths couldn’t be cut back a foot or so, and just leave the rest to grow wild.

‘We all like to see wild flowers, but all that there is at present are brambles and stinging nettles sticking out well into the way of all users of these paths.’

The adoption of the same principle — allowing paths to become dangerous in the name of ecology — is in evidence in Bracknell, Berkshire.

Unholy mess: When did those once-proud mayors and councillors decide that neatness and tidiness  should be sacrificed to the great god of green anarchy? Pictured: Damaging the ancient stones in Somerset

There, Bracknell Forest Council has let grass verges grow wild in a supposed bid to help the environment. Mowing was delayed to enable grass and wildflowers to grow and let the flowers set seed. But, when the mowing was finally done, it was conducted in a slapdash way.

One Sandhurst resident, who didn’t want to be identified, said it was ‘absolutely disgusting the way the council have left the state of our roads and paths after what they say is cutting the grass! They couldn’t even be bothered to cut around the lamp posts or attempt to clear up’. The resident’s pictures show grass cuttings strewn along the path, with long grass lapping around a lamp post.

The Bracknell episode is a classic example of the way things are going. If mowing is considered to be supposedly ‘bad’ for the environment, then, when council employees do finally get round to doing it, they will do it inefficiently and sloppily.

When did those once-proud mayors and councillors decide that neatness and tidiness — virtues appreciated by the vast majority of the residents they represent —should be sacrificed to the great god of green anarchy?

Harry Mount is author of How England Made The English .