Japanese knotweed is an invasive plant, troublesome due to its aggressive growth and ability to regrow from even the smallest amount of rhizome left in the soil.
If you’re a landowner and you fail to keep your Japanese knotweed under control, you can be fined. One landowner in Yorkshire has a cautionary tale to tell about this. Read on to find out more.
What happened?
A landowner in Bradford was ordered to pay more than £2,600 because he failed to comply with an order to eradicate the weed from his land. In the spring of 2018, he had been issued a community protection notice due to Japanese knotweed on his land.
As a landowner, you are responsible for ensuring that Japanese knotweed does not spread from your land. You are allowed to grow it, but it must not spread from your property onto anyone else’s land or into the wild. If you take steps to remove the plant, it must be disposed of properly at an approved landfill site.
In this particular case, the landowner failed to comply with the community protection notice, and was issued an initial fine of £1,000. The court also ordered him to remove the knotweed infestation by August 2019. This didn’t happen, and after the Covid lockdowns were eased in 2021, the site was inspected. The knotweed was still there, and only a token effort to remove it had been undertaken. So, the landowner has now been issued with another fine (£1,100 plus costs of £1,144 and a £440 surcharge) and another order to eradicate the Japanese knotweed.
This was just one individual landowner. If you’re a business, you may face fines of up to £18,000 or more, with some reaching as high as £30,000.
This all goes to show how important it is that you get any infestation of Japanese knotweed under control as soon as possible.
Here at Taylor Total Weed Control, we offer a professional Japanese knotweed removal service, and will happily estimate costs for any knotweed treatment you need on your property. We can also provide legal advice in case of a dispute. If a legal case goes to court, we can also act as expert witnesses.
If you think you’ve got Japanese knotweed – or any other invasive weed – on your property, or you are feuding with a neighbour about its encroachment on to your land, get in touch and book a free survey today!
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