SQUIRRELS were found dead and cats came home with burn marks after Camden Council used chemical weedkillers on a garden square, warn residents calling for a ban on the spray.

The Town Hall has now agreed the halt the use of chemical weedkillers in Camden Square, Camden Town, for a year after hundreds of residents signed a petition opposing their use.

Campaign organisers said the spray had led to an “animal ghost town” in the square’s park and injured roaming pets last year. 

Coral Temple, who has lived in Camden Square for 23 years, started the petition on Friday and has notched up more than 500 signatures after council officers initially said the chemicals would be used again next month. 

Ms Temple said: “They stopped using them, and now animals have finally came back to the square.”

She added that birds did not fly over the park for three months after the weedkiller was used, and that songbirds, squirrels, woodpeckers, bats, mag­pies, owls, bees and butter­flies had disappeared. 

“The chemicals made the park look very neat, but it became very eerie without any wildlife. The atmosphere was dead as a doornail,” she said.

A council officer said yesterday (Wednesday) they would go ahead with a “trial” where the park was not sprayed for a year, unless Japanese Knotweed was discovered – which would require a “glyphosate-based product”. But Ms Temple says she would not be satisfied with “anything less than a permanent ban.”

Liberal Democrat councillor Paul Braithwaite, who lives close to Camden Square, said he supported the petition and that chemical sprays were “unneces­sary”. He said: “I have urged the head of parks to defer the use of these chemicals in Camden Square for another year.”

Jerri Jerram, who has lived on the square for a decade, said her cats had suffered from burns when the weedkillers were last used. “These chemicals are toxic,” she said. “There is a reason why people spray them in protective clothing. My cats would roam around the park, and as soon as the weedkiller was used they had severe burns on their backs, stomachs, and the backs of their arms and legs – basically anywhere that had come into contact with the grass.”

A Camden Council spokesman said: “The one-year trial will start with immediate effect, during which the park will not be sprayed, to align with the manual weeding taking place in the surrounding square. We will monitor the impact on the square during the trial period.”

• View the petition at https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/ending-the-use-of-poisonous-horticultural-chemicals-on-camden-square-and-beyond