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Grand Designs Live, the exhibition at ExCeL in London, and spin off from the famous TV programme presented by Kevin McCloud is helping to raise awareness of Japanese knotweed.

Pop Larkin knows spring is in the air when new Japanese knotweed shoots are spotted coming up through ground recently covered in frost. Our Regional Manager in London spotted some knotweed early this week, followed closely by our Regional Manager in the South West, on a site in Devon.

Earlier this week a small delegation from Environet, myself included,  attended a conference at Portcullis House in Westminster on the new EU Legislation that came into force on January 1st 2015 on invasive alien species (IAS) such as Japanese knotweed. 

The Infrastructure Act 2015 received Royal Assent on 12 February 2015, and gives regulators even greater powers against those landowners unlucky enough to own land affected by invasive species such as Japanese knotweed.

You might think the bigger the Japanese knotweed infestation the bigger the problem. We can deal with large knotweed affected areas on commercial development sites with our bespoke Xtract machinery.

Looking ahead – Japanese knotweed solutions: January has just flown by, our busiest ever. Usually at this time of year we use our time to develop new equipment for Japanese knotweed eradication and work on ways to improve our service and train and recruit new staff.

So what did we achieve in the battle against Japanese knotweed in 2014? When I look back, quite a lot. On the general awareness front we launched our new website, on which we have received extremely favourable feedback. 

I am Mr Knotweed Seminar, (though I'm not the only one) If a group of surveyors from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in Parliament Square want a 45 minute talk on the dreaded superweed, with help on identification, potential damage and lending issues, I’m usually the man dispatched from Environet’s Knotweed HQ.

The Jeremy Vine Show (Radio 2) ran a feature on Japanese knotweed on Thursday 20th November 2014.

I'm not advocating you eat Japanese knotweed for breakfast, after all you don't know whether someone has sprayed some nasty chemicals on it.