Japanese knotweed specialists in Bristol

Guidance from Bristol City Council

• Knotweed in a park, on a riverbank or on other council land can be reported using the council's park and open space problem form. Council tenants should contact the estates team.
• Knotweed beside a railway line should be reported to Network Rail. Where it is on a neighbour's land, the council suggests speaking to them first, then considering mediation through Resolve West before taking legal action.
• The council warns that knotweed must not be put in household bins, compost or recycling centres, and that allowing it to spread onto someone else's land could lead to prosecution.

Further information is available on the council's website: Japanese knotweed.

Local background

• In December 2018 Bristol City Council secured an £18,000 fine against a landlord company that ignored a community protection notice over overgrown knotweed at a house in Horfield, thought to be one of the first such prosecutions under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. (source)

The law in England

It isn't an offence to have Japanese knotweed on your land, but under section 14 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 it is an offence to plant it or otherwise cause it to grow in the wild. Government guidance says you must stop it spreading off your property. Soil or plant material containing it is likely to be controlled waste, which must only go to an authorised site, and councils can use community protection notices where someone's failure to deal with it unreasonably affects people nearby.

See our guidance on Japanese knotweed and the law.