Fwd: Weeding - call to action

[Peter Lennard]

Please see the email below from Jason Prentis of Veolia, on the very day that it has been announced that a record 938 people died of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, a large proportion of which will have been in London. More people have now died of COVID-19 in our country of 60 million people than in a country of 1.4 billion people, but then I don’t think in Wuhan during the 76 days of their lockdown did they send people into the streets to spray the pavements in case some weeds might pop their heads up! The Chinese would laugh at us if they knew how stupid our officials are. What planet do these people live on? What should I reply? I suppose it has to be polite  :-(

Profit before safety, obviously.  I guess I should make a more rational reply than just expletive deleted. E.g.

"When you carry out the monitoring you describe around the 10th May if you find any weeds that are large and woody enough (like buddleia) in either Arlingford Road or Brailsford Road that may in future cause pavement damage please would you advise me of the location/s and I will remove it/them when the current COVID-19 lockdown is completely over.

When you requested volunteers to remove pavement weeds as being the only way to get your company to refrain from contaminating our environment with obnoxious chemicals it never occurred to me that you would consider it so urgent that you would proceed to choreograph a bizarre form of street hokey cokey during a worldwide pandemic, advising us to dance on and off the pavement to avoid walkers and cars while simultaneously having our heads down concentrating on removing weeds that threaten to make our houses tumble down around us if they’re not removed within a few moments of popping their little heads up between the cracks in the pavement.

I do not consider that the matter of a weed appearing in a pavement warrants even the slightest increase of risk of contracting COVID-19 by going against clear government advice only to go out for one of a very limited number of reasons: getting food, getting exercise, getting medicine, helping vulnerable people or being ‘key personnel’ which clearly pavement weeding ain’t.

With regards to the suggestion that you intend to dump a plastic bag in my front garden, our community garden has a compost bin. Weeds I might gather in future could be put in this bin, if they aren’t contaminated with your poisonous chemicals. Therefore you do NOT have permission to put ANY bags in my front garden and as far as I am concerned your chemical spraying personnel are persona non grata in our street.

You say "At the very least it'll be an opportunity to spend some time in the open air with official permission!” Please can you name the official that is giving this permission? If it is Mr Jason Prentis, what or who endows you with the authority to give this permission? You’re beginning to sound like a beneficent prison governor doling out the plum jobs to the most compliant prisoners."

Memo to our local councillors: This is a total inversion of common sense and surely Veolia do not have the authority to issue advice that goes against clear government safety rules. Can you please at least get this spraying programme if not cancelled at least postponed until the COVID-19 emergency is completely over? If Veolia behave in this reprehensible manner cannot a more responsible company be given the council’s waste management contracts in future?

I shall be forwarding Mr Prentis’s email to Private Eye - do any of my neighbours have any other suggestions?

Peter

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Prentis, Jason" <jason....@veolia.com>

Subject: Weeding - call to action

Date: 8 April 2020 at 17:04:58 BST

To: pe...@hands.free-online.co.uk

Dear Peter,

I'm now able to give you more information about the weeding programme and what this means for you and your street.

When to weed

The sprayers will be in the borough from May 4th, and we expect the treatment to take three weeks, so they'll finish on May 22nd. As you'll probably remember from the form you filled in, we'll be monitoring streets that have opted out. This is so that if any streets still require weeding towards the end of the programme we can direct the sprayers to them.  

I wouldn't urge anyone to begin weeding just yet, however. Normally at around this time of year, there's a sudden growth of weeds - it tends to occur if we get two or three days of rain followed by a bit of sun. At the moment there's very little rain forecast, so there might not be many weeds around - they'll probably arrive towards the end of April or beginning of May. If you aim to have your weeding finished by the end of Sunday May 10th, that should give us ample time to deal with any issues.

Weeding during quarantine

Having consulted with your neighbours before opting out, you'll probably have had a few volunteers offering to help you. To make sure everybody's able to weed while complying with the government's advice on social distancing, there are a couple of options:

1.    Divide the road into sections, and allocate each volunteer their own section; or

2.    Work out a rota so that only one person at a time is out weeding.

Either way, always be on the lookout for pedestrians, and stand aside if necessary to ensure two metres' separation (be very careful if this involves stepping into the road).

How to weed

If possible, it's best to weed after rain as it softens the soil that the weeds are growing in and makes it possible to pull out weeds along with their roots. Any accumulated soil that the weeds are growing in should also be removed.

I'll be delivering your green garden waste bag before the end of this week - I'll leave it in your front garden so there's no contact. When the bag's full, please leave it on the pavement next to your bins on collection day; our intrepid food-and-garden-waste collectors will empty it and return it to your front garden.

And finally

Many thanks again for signing up. At the very least it'll be an opportunity to spend some time in the open air with official permission! I hope you'll enjoy it. In the unlikely event that anybody questions what you're doing and are not satisfied with your explanation, please ask them to email streetc...@lambeth.gov.uk and we'll respond to them, confirming that you're working on behalf of the council. If you have any questions or problems at any point please contact me straight away and I'll be pleased to help.

All the best,

Jason Prentis

Education, Communication & Outreach Officer

United Kingdom

t. +44 (0)79 63 15 39 80 

Veolia Lambeth, 185-205 Shakespeare Road, London, SE24 0PZ

www.veolia.co.uk

www.facebook.com/lambethstreetchampions

www.facebook.com/communityfreshview

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