News

Defra has released a new invasive species strategy for Great Britain, highlighting a vision protect biodiversity, ecosystems, people and the economy and implement a partnership of government, voluntary organisations, NGOs, academia, businesses and the public.

The report highlights the likelihood that climate change will increase the problems caused by invasive species and sets out its aim to minimise the risk of introduction and establishment and reduce the negative impacts of invasive non-native species…..

We may have said it before but sometimes we in the INNSA offices wonder whether we would have been better focusing on a career in the legal profession.

Such thoughts have arisen a number of times over the past couple of months as we have watched several judgements come in from the civil courts and the Court of Appeal for cases involving Japanese knotweed. The cases have variously resulted in: significant financial damages awarded for misrepresentation … relatively inconsequential damages for loss of property value … and a case where damages were not awarded as the case was found in favour of the defendant.

As we start a new year, I thought it might be worth re-visiting why the Invasive Non Native Specialists Association (INNSA) was originally founded.

Going back twenty years or so, invasive species had become an area for concern and Japanese knotweed in particular had captured the public imagination. Newspaper articles about devalued properties and damage caused by this aggressive invader were appearing regularly and demonised the plant to the point of creating dread amongst homeowners and housebuilders alike.

My personal involvement with Japanese knotweed began in the 1990’s, when I owned and managed both a landscape architectural practice and a landscape design and build company. When Japanese knotweed was found on projects I was working on, I was asked to come up with remediation strategies. The skill sets and teams from my landscaping companies were ideal for comprehensive survey work and the follow-up chemical or physical removal treatment prescribed.

If you only read one line of this article, let it be this one: if you’re selling a home, consider long and hard before you answer “No”, to the question: “is the property affected by Japanese knotweed?” on the TA6 form – you may be much better off if you tick the “Not known” box… maybe even £200,000 better off!

The longer answer is, that if you do want to answer “no” on the form, INNSA would strongly recommended that you have this backed up by a competent professional opinion (ideally a site survey by a competent surveyor, provided by a member of a recognised trade association).

As a health and safety professional, I’m a fan of evidence-based approaches and I love a good scientific study (at this point, I’m sure you’re wondering how you can get me along to your next party!), so it was with interest that I read the recently released Cardiff Council study into the effectiveness of three different weed control methods for hard surface weed control.

The three methods – two herbicides: glyphosate and acetic acid, and a hot foam applicator which kills plants through the physical application of heat – were compared for sustainability in eighteen different categories, including petrol and diesel use, cost, water use and use of labour. The study also measured the effectiveness of the treatments using customer complaints and reports of weeds.