There are many users of pesticides in urban areas. Even looking just at local authorities often reveals a confusing picture, with councils of various levels responsible for maintaining different areas. For example, a town council may be responsible for parks and decide that they aren’t going to use pesticides in those spaces. Meanwhile, pavements in the same town could be managed by a district or county council that do spray pesticides. This complex patchwork makes it almost impossible to state with certainty that particular towns or cities are pesticide-free without digging deeper into each individual locality.
In addition, it is not only councils that use pesticides in our towns and cities. Many other major land managers are using pesticides to control weeds in a range of areas including shopping centres, hospitals, schools, university campuses and around transport infrastructure. Declaring a town “pesticide-free” even if all local authorities have stopped using pesticides could, therefore, be misleading.