This time last year, residents of the council estate where I live in Greenwich were left in tears after local authority contractors mowed down scores of newly planted purple alliums on our shared lawn just days after they’d bloomed. In minutes, one man with a strimmer had reduced the flowers that my neighbours, many of whom do not have private gardens, had grown over months to mere mulch.

Shamefaced, this year the council sought to make amends by sowing a biodiversity meadow near where the alliums had met their fate. The new wildflowers were doing well – on track to compensate for the previous year’s blunder – until, to the consternation of residents, they were yet again mown down by council contractors. Even the local authorities’ own efforts to improve the biodiversity of the borough proved no match for its trigger-happy lawnmower men.

The problem of relentless local authority mowing is far from unique to Greenwich. All across the country, communities are calling for their councils to do more for biodiversity by mowing less and using fewer plant-killing chemicals. Polling by Friends of the Earth showed that 81% of the public back reduced local authority grass-cutting, and 88% would like their councils to stop spraying harmful pesticides.

But despite public urging, change within many local authorities has been glacial. Cardiff, for example, refused local calls to stop spraying herbicides, and reportedly doused areas where........

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