The weedkiller glyphosate has failed to kill woodier plants, according to a councillor.

Green councillor Kerry Pickett made the claim as she asked whether Brighton and Hove City Council would use the herbicide – sold commercially as Roundup – again next year.

At Hove Town Hall on Thursday, October 24, Councillor Pickett said: “Glyphosate has now been sprayed throughout the city for most of the summer.

“As we know, its use is weather dependent and it cannot be sprayed when it is raining so, in light of our climate-changing weather patterns that will only get worse and with the fact that it has failed to kill the woodier stemmed plants, as initially planned, does the council intend to repeat this process again next year?”

She also asked whether residents could opt for their street to be removed from the spraying regime which was reintroduced in the summer after a five-year break.

Labour cabinet member Tim Rowkins said that the rain had “accelerated” weed growth and delayed wider use of the “controlled droplet” treatment which would be reviewed.

Councillor Rowkins said: “I’m keen on it [the opt out] and I’m keen to explore anything as long as it can give us confidence the problem will be maintained to the satisfaction of residents.”

Councillors voted to ban the use of glyphosate spraying in 2019, with the policy achieving cross-party support.

However, rather than phasing out the weedkiller, council workers stopped spraying altogether which resulted in an overgrowth of weeds on pavements and roadsides across Brighton and Hove.

Despite efforts to recruit workers to remove the weeds manually and experiments with different methods, none proved successful.