Puppy injured by overgrown pavement weeds in Brighton

Alex Bateman, of Kipling Avenue, Woodingdean, has spent hundreds of pounds on vet’s bills for his nine-month-old pet Lily after the barley grass spear went straight through her paw and had to be surgically removed.

Vets said clumps of barley grass in the streets, once kept under control with weed killer, are injuring dogs across Brighton and Hove.

Mr Bateman spoke out after councillors debated tackling the city-wide weed problem during a Brighton and Hove City Council meeting.

He said: “The main problem is the grass verges. Straight outside the house, there is a great clump of barley grass – and then it’s all down the road.

“There is no avoiding it. The first thing dogs do when they get out is run into the grass for a wee. She has some shoes now but she sees it as a punishment.”

Mr Bateman first took Lily, a Cavalier King Charles, Westie and bichon frise cross – to Acorn Vets near where he works in Hove after she started “furiously” licking one of her front paws a couple of weeks ago.

In the week after her initial treatment, her wounds were redressed but not healing after a shard was removed.

Lily wearing a cone after her surgery

On Saturday, she had a general anaesthetic and a two-inch seed was found still embedded in her paw.

The vets’ surgery where Lily was treated, in Portland Road, Hove, said staff help three to five dogs a day with barley grass seeds in their paws, ears and up their noses.

Conservative councillor Dee Simson, who represents Woodingdean ward, said: “The council’s inability to weed the pavements is having a cost to pet owners right across the city who are dealing with these vet bills, especially in areas such as Woodingdean where the prevalence of barley grass is greater.

“Woodingdean is surrounded by farmland including barley fields which means both the wind and the birds deposit barley grass seeds all over the place. This means the council needs to be proactive and on top of weed clearing year round.”

Cllr Simson said the cost to pet owners was just part of the issue as there was a long-term cost to taxpayers with overgrown weeds causing pavements to crack.

She said there were not enough people working to manually weed the 600 miles of pavements after the council agreed to ban glyphosate, known commercially as Roundup, in 2019.

Fellow Conservative councillor Robert Nemeth raised the issue at the meeting of the full council.

He said there were three staff clearing the weeds when 200 were needed after the council failed to seek alternatives to glyphosate before introducing the ban.

He asked: “Rather than continue to pretend these issues can be fixed, would the leader of the council simply state openly that there is no chance whatsoever of having safe, tidy and weed-free pavements under the Greens and Labour.”

Green council leader Phélim Mac Cafferty said Cllr Nemeth should be enthusiastic about the glyphosate ban because he keeps bees and all three political parties had agreed to end the use of glyphosate.

He said: “We are getting there in terms of catching up with the work. All street cleaning staff who work on foot runs are weeding.”

Council workers are also using new low-vibration trimmers and staff at Cityclean, the council’s rubbish and recycling service, have been offered overtime to focus on weeding.

The council tried to recruit 28 seasonal staff to tackle the weeding but received few applications.

Instead, it was employing two teams of contractors to focus on weed removal while further efforts were made to recruit permanent workers.

Green councillor Steve Davis said Brexit was to blame for recruitment issues, with hospitality, transport and the NHS also suffering.

He said: “Roughly 1.4 million EU citizens have left this country and they’re never coming back.

“These people mow our verges, stack our shelves and look after our elderly citizens in care homes. It is a real struggle with recruitment.”