Salisbury council leaders have hit back at “politically motivated” attacks on their decision to replace council-provided single-use hanging baskets and planters with environmentally friendly sustainable plantings in the medieval city centre.
As part of an effort to become carbon neutral by 2030 and encourage bees and butterflies in the city centre, the Coalition-led council voted this week to replace hanging baskets with “living pillars” and “parklets”, which he hopes will provide pockets. from nature in the heart of the city.
Conservative opposition leader Eleanor Wills called it “ideological nonsense according to [a] cabal of leftists” and said it was “‘incredibly unfortunate for a city with medieval roots’.
She said: “For a left-wing council to completely ban hanging baskets and other floral displays on sustainability and biodiversity grounds suggests […] a new and undesirable path for ideological silliness”.
But independent councilor Annie Riddle, one of the leadership group, said the move had been blown out of proportion as part of a “political gimmick” by Wills and there was no ban on hanging baskets, after some local business owners expressed concern that his own flowers were illegal.
“You can’t really get rid of hanging baskets, that’s a ridiculous exaggeration. Lots of shops and pubs have hanging baskets, and they can continue to do so, no one is banning them,” he said. “What we’re doing is trying a different form of environmentally friendly municipal planting. To be honest with you, this is a politically motivated row that’s been manufactured.”
Riddle said the council had already stated that if the new displays were hated, there was “nothing to stop” the council from re-installing the baskets next year.
“Salisbury’s history is one of its greatest glories, but it cannot live in the past,” he said. “There are other ways things can look nice, be more wildlife-friendly and provide more shade. We hope this style of planting will attract more wildlife and be more bee-friendly.”
In a review in 2019, the council pledged to make the city as carbon neutral as possible by 2030 to help tackle the climate change emergency.
New plans detailed in a five-page report they include the construction of a “parquet” in the Market Square, with a wheelchair-accessible seating area surrounded by plants, which the council says would provide natural shade and require less intensive watering.
The proposals also include replacing traditional hanging baskets with “living pillars”. vertical plant installations which the council argues would “provide more benefits to wildlife and require less irrigation”.
Marc Read, the council’s environmental services manager, said that while the colorful displays are “an expression of civic pride”, they are “increasingly demanding in terms of costs and other resources as the summer progresses it is getting drier and hotter as the climate continues to change. “. The budget for the 2023-24 floral displays, including irrigation, is £30,000.
The row has also centered on a plant structure known as ‘Gilbert’, a dragon-shaped floral display which has been a long-standing feature of central Salisbury, and which the council says requires 30,000 liters of water to the year. The council’s report says “Gilbert’s framework has reached the end of its useful life, with much of the internal irrigation pipe failing”.
Riddle said a local group, Men’s Shed, had offered to try to repair the structure, while the council explored ways to replant or recreate Gilbert, but with more environmentally friendly plants.
“What has been lost sight of in all of this is the reality of climate change and the fact that we will have to adapt,” he said. “The only thing the city council is trying to do is what the electorate indicated when they voted for us two years ago, which is to make our city more environmentally friendly and keep it as green and pleasant as it is now by to future generations.”
The Met Office said this week that last month was the UK’s hottest June ever.
