Medway Liberal Democrats welcome the Council's U-Turn on the 'No Mow May' Campaign

Like most Medway residents, Medway Liberal Democrats were disappointed by the announcement by Conservative Council Cllr Leader Jarrett that he intends to end the much needed and supported 'No Mow May' campaign setup by Plant Life. However, we now welcome the U-turn by the Medway Conservatives when they received a massive backlash by the public, and now have agreed to continue the campaign next year.

The campaign, asks residents and businesses - including local councils - to refrain from mowing lawns and green spaces, increasing biodiversity, reducing mowing and encouraging wildlife to flourish on verges. The campaign was setup by Plant Life to help the endangered bee populations of the UK. 35 bee species in the UK are under threat, mostly due to 97% of their vital grassland habitant being lost in the last 60 years. And since bees pollinate 75% of our edible foot crops, their loss would have dire consequences for us too. So the campaign asks people and organisations to put away their mowers for the month of May, a period where bees' food sources are especially low and scarce, and allow flowers to grow and feed the bees.

Obviously there were issues on how Medway Council should have implemented this campaign this year and that wasn't perfect. The Council did not follow Plant Life guidance on how to maintain grass verges to keep visibility for drivers, guidance that Cllr Jarrett had not even heard of. The Council did not inform the residents of Medway of the campaign, which meant many people were confused about the lack of grass cutting and complained. But instead of constructively solving these problems, the Council decided to not follow through on the campaign.

Luckily on hearing the news of the campaign being stopped, many local environmental groups across Medway rallied around to force the Council to change their mind. One of those was Liberal Democrat member and environmental campaigner Stuart Bourne, who setup a council petition against the ending of the campaign.

He says, 'As soon as I heard that the No Mow May campaign was under threat I knew I had to do something. Bees play an important part in our food chain, and I knew that putting our mowers away for just a month is something is so simple and yet extremely effective. So I started the petition online and shared it with many other groups I know also care about saving Medway's wildlife.

I know there were issues surrounding visibility at roads, but these are problems that can be overcome and I'm sort of person who would rather roll up my sleeves and fix them rather than complain and walk away.'

Local Liberal Democrats believe that 'No Mow May' is a fantastic initiative and Medway Council, in its U-Turn to keep the campaign for next year, has joined other Councils in the UK in by leaving parks and road verges to go wild. We hope that Medway Council has learnt their lesson and continue work with environmental groups to help protect the wonderful wildlife we have here in the Medway Towns. We will continue to call on them to continue the No Mow May campaign and also hope that they increase the amount of grass verges they leave uncut all year round.

ENDS