The Weed Monkeys’ are affiliated to River Dart Rotary and were born in the summer of 2022 after some meetings of like minds between members of Rotary and their ‘Friends’.  These discussions focused on the steady decline in appearance of many areas of Dartmouth, caused primarily by overgrown, untreated weeds on pavements, kerbs, steps and other areas of the built environment.

Recognising that the situation was only likely to worsen in the short and probably medium terms, and concerned to do something immediately to improve the look of our beautiful town, a few intrepid volunteers picked up some tools and started weeding. Since then, both volunteer numbers and weeding sessions have steadily increased, enabling us to tackle more areas of the town.

However weeds, of course, keep growing and the challenge of keeping on top of them is enormous.  The effects of local authority cutbacks, rewilding trends and the non-acceptability of glyphosate weedkillers have all contributed to a situation that results in pavements and thoroughfares not being weeded for months or even years.

We understand that the beauty of Dartmouth is one of the main reasons why many of us chose to live here, but it’s also the reason why thousands of people choose to visit the town every year, bringing significant and vital income to our retail, hospitality and other businesses.  We believe that the current shabby state of the town jeopardises this tourism income in the immediate future.

The Weed Monkeys and River Dart Rotary have teamed up with Dartmouth Green Partnership, The Chamber of Commerce, Town Council Officers and Town and District Councillors to form the TIDY DARTMOUTH initiative, which is making steady progress in trying to address the challenges that the town has in this area

WHY THE NAME ‘WEED MONKEYS’?….AND WHAT WE DO

One of our volunteers coined the phrase soon after we had started and it just stuck.

For some reason it seems to work and people like it, so The Weed Monkeys are here to stay!

We concentrate on weeding and sweeping pedestrianised areas of the built environment in the highest visibility areas of the town.  This includes pavements, flights of steps and other pedestrianised areas e.g. the embankment. Where safe and logical, it might also include some roadside kerbs, but this is not the norm.

Up until the summer of 2025, we have planned one 2 hour weeding session per week during the Spring, Summer and Autumn seasons, weather permitting.  No-one wants to weed in the rain! However, having increased our volunteer numbers to over 50, and also forming a leadership group (The Weeder Leaders) we are doubling up and aiming for two sessions each week  from March through untill November.

As of summer 2025, sessions will run cyclically either mornings from 9-11 or afternoons from 2-4 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays. The programme for the rest of the year is viewable below

We weed and sweep the designated area, bag up the green waste and notify SHDC of the location of the bags for collection.

Weed Monkeys are all volunteers.  Most have joined after seeing us out and about doing what we do. We currently have over fifty volunteers and hope that this number continues to grow.  Doing so will enable us to carry out increasingly more sessions.

Volunteers are not required to commit to a minimum number of sessions. They come along as and when they are able to do so.

We recently carried out or first ‘sponsored’ session for the George & Dragon and M&S. They are the first two businesses to make a donation in return for weeding.

We try to deal with areas that are most urgently in need of attention in the highest areas of visibility. We also aim to carry out increased numbers of sessions in the Townstal area at the top of town. We welcome requests, especially if they come with a pledge of a donation.  Please contact us. (see below) 

You don’t need to join Rotary to help us