The Leicester City Council’s street cleaning is the West End is about as effective as it can be under the circumstances. Keeping on top of an increasing amount of fly tipping and littering whilst diving into every nook and cranny is a difficult prospect.
This is where volunteer litter-pickers come in. Wearing high-vis jackets and thick protective gloves the St Paul’s Community Litter Picking Team met for the first time on August 8th to sieve through the area around the Kirby Road Pocket Park and the old St Paul’s Church.
A dozen bags of rubbish were collected in a couple of hours including cans, bottles and broken glass.
One of the big problems in the area is the number of discarded needles and syringes. These are generally stuck in hard to reach places like behind hedges, railings or hidden by grass. Special care must be taken with these as they can potentially pass on hepatitis B, C and HIV. The needles were found by Adrian Ablett, better known as Can Man, and reported to the council who promptly collected them within a few minutes.
The group was brainchild of local eco-campaigner Adrian, and currently includes members of the Community Hub which meets every Wednesday 2-4pm in the Worship Centre.
Adrian and Rev Sharon Plant met at the Hub and discovered that they both had a desire to clean-up the area for the benefit of the wider community.
A grant approval by Fosse Ward for £500 funded the purchase of litter-picking equipment.
The group is convinced that there are others who would like to see the streets around the St Paul’s Conservation Area looking and feeling cleaner and brighter, and they are hoping that more local residents will soon join them.
If you are interested in getting involved, please contact Rev Sharon on 07850 026 007 or e-mail Dave at stpaulscommunity@outlook.com
The litter picking team plan to meet at 11.30am on alternate Tuesday’s at St Paul’s & St Augustine’s Worship Centre, Kirby Road. The hourly sessions are followed by free refreshments.
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