Councils can rarely win when it comes to media coverage. This is illustrated perfectly this week by tales from two local authorities either side of central London. In Havering, the council hit the headlines after deciding to replace workmen with cows to mow down its grass-cutting costs. The London borough has decided to use Red Poll cattle, which are touted as having ‘generations of experience in grass management'. But Havering is by no means the first council to use animals to cut grass. A small zoo could seemingly be put together from the inventive collection of critters considered, with Norfolk using sheep, Portsmouth picking goats and Stockport eyeing up llamas. However, Reading BC has a different problem, with Green councillor Rob White urging the authority to let the grass grow – because Alan Titchmarsh says so. The gardening guru is running a campaign to get councils to change the management of grass verges to improve them for wildlife. Diary had been of the impression that Titchmarsh had himself been put out to pasture after such woeful attempts to write racy novels…