Report noxious and environmental weeds on your property
Noxious or invasive weeds are plants that pose a threat to agriculture, the environment or the community and have the potential to spread to other areas.
Project Status: When you need to do this
If you detect state and regionally prohibited weeds or restricted plants on your property you must notify us within 24 hours.
The City of Sydney is responsible for ensuring noxious plants are controlled both on public and private land across the local area.
Under the Biosecurity Act 2015, the City of Sydney has the power as the local control authority to inspect private land and issue orders for owners or occupiers to control noxious weeds.
What you need to do
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Determine what sort of weed it is
To determine the class of weed, visit the Department of Primary Industries website. There you will find a current list of declared noxious weeds across the state including identifications and appropriate control measures.
You can use the site’s search function to find out about declared noxious weeds across our local area.
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Contact us immediately
Class 1, 2 and/or 5 noxious weeds are notifiable weeds. If you detect these noxious weeds on your property you must notify the City of Sydney within 24 hours.
How weeds are classified and handled
There are currently 5 control classes that determine how noxious weeds need to be handled:
- Class 1: State prohibited weeds – the plant must be eradicated from the land and the land must be kept free of the plant.
- Class 2: Regionally prohibited weeds – the plant must be eradicated from the land and the land must be kept free of the plant.
- Class 3: Regionally controlled weeds – the plant must be fully and continuously suppressed and destroyed.
- Class 4: Locally controlled weeds – the growth of the plant must be managed in a way that reduces its numbers, spread and incidence, and continually stops reproducing. The plant must not be sold, propagated or knowingly distributed.
- Class 5: Restricted plants – you must comply with the notifiable weed requirements in the act.
Other information
Noxious weeds
The Minister for Primary Industries declares noxious weeds geographically. Any particular plant may be declared across one council area, numerous council areas, a region or the entire state. Across NSW, noxious weed lists include many agricultural, bushland, aquatic, roadside and allergenic weeds. Many of these weeds are not as common and widespread in urban environments.
Environmental weeds
Traditionally, the majority of declared weeds have been agricultural weeds based on the need to protect agricultural production. Recently, the number of environmental weeds has increased on the declared noxious weeds list.
Not all environmental weeds that grow in the City are currently declared noxious, but we may recommend their inclusion at a future date.
