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March 2020 Litter Pick Summary And Other News

Firstly – Coronavirus is everone’s main focus at the moment.  The committee are considering the impact on our activities and more information will be issues soon.

14 volunteers met at Summerfields on Wednesday March.  We collected a big haul of 29 bags. We covered Colshaw Drive and the roads off it, Dean Row Rd, the area around the footbridge leading over the bypass to Lincoln Rd, the Lidl/Wilmslow Tavern/Village Centre areas and Manchester Rd (from Stanneylands Rd traffic lights to Wilmslow Garden Centre). Other volunteers covered Holly Road South & North and Water Lane/Altrincham Rd in vicinity of Fire Station/Chili Banana.  During the Summerfields pick, we met the local PCSO (Kerry) who told us that the residents association were planning some clean ups too – fantastic news. Since then, Ellie from “Friends of Colshaw Farm Parks” has been in touch – so we will be liaising with them for future events.  For future picks at Summerfields, we need to be aware that the Lidl car park has different regulations to the main Summerfields one.  One of our volunteers picked up a parking fine as a result.

9 volunteers met at Bank Square on Saturday 7th March. We collected  14 bags altogether. We focussed on Bank Square, the Railway station, the Leisure Centre, Bollin Link Road, Alderley Road, Knutsford Road, Chapel Lane, Grove St and the area surrounding Bank Square.

There have been a lot of solo picks recently too. The grand total for the month was at least 54 bags.  Well done everyone.

Gorsey Bank junior school borrowed our equipment so that they could do some litter picks which their “The Department for Environment” organised.   A really great effort and so good to see young people learning about litter – and it sounds like they all enjoyed it.

We are also in discussions with 1st Wilmslow guides about lending them our equipment. They have done litter picks before – and we are happy to support them.

The committee held a meeting in February – where we started the planning for the annual Spring Clean. We reviewed our financial situation and are able to progress the purchase of some new equipment.

The Spring Clean will run from Wednesday 1st -> Tuesday 7th April.  There will be 2 extra picks making 4 altogether.  We are also hoping to meet for drinks.

We have booked Wilmslow Library for our AGM on Mon 18th May from 19.30 -> 21:30. A formal notification will be sent to our members nearer the time.

We have contacted Cheshire East (ANSA) to request that they clean up all the litter pick on the verges of the A34 (the bypass). We are unable to litter pick for safety reasons.  Even ANSA can only do it when the road is shut.  For some reason they don’t schedule a regular clean up – and so we have to ask them to do it when it gets really bad.  They have responded promptly though – and we have had confirmation that the clean up is planned for the week commencing 20th April – great news.

We have contacted Wilmslow Town Council to see if the overgrown moss on the pavement near the Ford dealership can be tidied up as it is very overgrown and doesn’t give a good impression at one of the main gateways into the town.

“Alderley Edge In Bloom” have contacted us about their plans for Keep Britain Tidy’s Spring Clean event – and the possibility of joining forces for a litter pick on Heyes Lane.

Costa new bin locationOne of our commitee members, Helen, has been talking to Costa about the possibility of a bin outside their premises.  Cheshire East (ANSA) do not have any budget for new bins unfortunately. Helen had a positive conversation with Verity who has been the Manager at Wilmslow Costa for 3 years. Verity explained that a rubbish bin is on order for their outside area – which their staff will empty. She wants it installed quickly because she gets complaints from the adjoining property owners at the rear when Costa customers lean over to use the neighbouring CEC residential bins. Verity seems well aware of community facilities and was saddened to lose the nearby pear sculpture when it was twice vandalised. She has had plants stolen from tubs she has planted up. She plans to send two members of staff to join in a Wednesday Litter Pick in due course – as part of their firm’s commitment  to the local community. Helen will alert Verity about the next suitable litter pick. This all sounds very promising.

All in all a very busy and productive month,  It is unclear how things will pan out of the next few months but we will keep you informed and the health safety of our volunteers is our main concern.

February 2020 Litter Pick Summary And Other News

10 volunteers assembled, at the Parish Hall on Wednesday 5th February. We focused on the surrounding area. The area around the train station is perpetually bad for litter – we will discus whether a new bin is required in the vicinity.

We were delighted to welcome a new volunteer : Tim.

We collected at least 15 bags.

9 volunteers met at The Honey Bee on Saturday 8th February. We covered Altrincham Road between the airport tunnels and Waters.  One of our volunteers, Peter, then headed off to the area near the high school to finish some work that started on Wednesday.

We were pleased to see that the vegetation has been cut back on the pavements leading form the Honey Bee, down the hill,  to the Britannia Hotel. This has been a problem in the past as it was so overgrown (on the same side of the road as the hotel) and made it difficult to walk along the pavement.

We have also alerted ANSA to some industrial debris, on the verge of carriageway to side of the roundabout leading towards the airport tunnels, and to a dangerous hole where a drain cover has been lifted.

We collected at least 14 bags plus some recyclables and hubcaps.

Thanks to some solo picks, our total for the last month is at least 41 bags.

In other news :

The Deputy Head of School at Gorsey Bank and one of their pupil groups, “The Department for Environment”, are organising a Litter Pick week for all pupils (and hopefully some parents too!) w/c 24th Feb. The youngest pupils will be collecting litter in the school grounds, but some of the KS2 pupils we will be venturing further afield to Carnival Field, Lindow Common and perhaps into town too. We will be lending some equipment to the school and hopefully some display materials to provoke discussion around the damaging effects of litter.

We will be holding a committee meeting on 18th February.  Agenda items include planning the annual Spring Clean, defining committee roles and setting a date for the AGM.

January 2020 Litter Pick Summary And Other News

A Happy New Year to all our volunteers and supporters.

We normally arrange 2 litter picks every month : on the first Wednesday and following Saturday As January’s Wednesday pick would have fallen on New Years Day this year, we moved it a week later.

So, our first pick of 2020 was on Saturday 4th January.  We had an amazing turnout with 16 volunteers – possibly a record. We met at Bank Square and spread out in all directions. Having so many volunteers allowed us to cover most of the town centre – which is looking a lot tidier as a result.

Wilmslow Clean Team Fly Tipping Broadway Meadows Jan 2020We were concerned by the amount of litter in and around Broadway Meadows car park – and the lack of bins.  We have tried and failed in the past to get a new bin installed (due to a lack of funding) but we have asked ANSA (Cheshire East’s contractor) once again. ANSA confirmed that the request is still on their list for consideration. We have also asked ANSA to clean up the far end of the car park where the recycling bins used to be – and they have agreed to see to this. We have also asked them to remove a fly tipped tyre and paint from the bottom end of the car park.

We collected at least 29 bags, a tyre and at least I bag of recyclables at the Saturday pick.

Wilmslow Clean Team Lacey Green Park January 2020Our second pick of the year was on Wednesday 8th January. 8 volunteers met outside the gates of the park in Lacey Green on Barlow Moor Road.  We covered the whole of the park area, Barlow Moor Road, Lacey Green, halfway down Egerton Road, Cranford Road and Mount Pleasant – not a bad morning’s work.

We collected 12 bags of litter making it at least 41 in total at our 2 scheduled picks.

In addition, there have been a lot of solo picks recently which have helped us get off to a flying start in 2020 – with 56 bags collected altogether in the past month. Great work everyone.

The committee are going to discuss the possibility of some A boards which we can put up when we are doing litter picks – to raise awareness and attract new volunteers.

We made contact with “Run North West Limited” to discuss the issue of plastic bottle littering after their recent “Festive 10k” run

We are trying to help a Handforth resident who raised a concern about the amount of litter being thrown from cars on the bypass towards the airport. We have contacted ANSA to see if they can provide any further information / assistance.

December 2019 Litter Pick Summary And Other News

On a sunny and crisp Wednesday morning,  9 volunteers met at The Farmer’s Arms on Chapel Lane.  We covered most of the roads in the area, with one member going off to do parts of Altrincham Road, as unfinished business from the last event based at The Honey Bee. We collected at least 13 bags of litter.  We also picked up a surprising number of nitrous oxide canisters in the gutter along Buckingham Road.

Six volunteers met at Summerfieds on Saturday 7th December. We covered both verges down to the A34 bypass, Colshaw Drive, Malpas Drive and Wheelock Close as well as Dean Row Road as far as the junction with Manchester Road. We collected a total of 11 bags of litter. We also took an additional bag of recyclable items (crushed plastic bottles and aluminium cans) away for domestic recycling.

One of our volunteers (Liz) discovered, on a solo pick, that the clean up after the recent 10k running event had not been very effective – with a lot of discarded, plastic water bottles. We are unsure who organised this event. Wilmslow Running Club are normally very good after their half marathon – so maybe this new event is organised by a different organisation?  Anyway – we have made Cheshire East aware.

Our total bag count for the year is 446 – an amazing effort.

The total number pf bags we have collected, in the 6 years since we were formed, has gone over the 3,000 mark. This is a remarkable achievement for a volunteer run organisation – although we would much rather be seeing a reduction in the amount of litter out there.

Please note that our first scheduled litter pick of 2020 is on Saturday 4th January.  Our Wednesday pick would normally have fallen on New Years Day – so we have pushed that one back a week until 8th January.

Well done everyone and thanks for all your hard work and support during the year. We wish all our volunteers a Merry Christmas and we hope to see you all again in the New Year.

 

 

 

November 2019 Litter Pick Summary And Other News

9 volunteers met at Bank Square on Wednesday 6th November. We covered Hawthorn Lane, Bank Square, Green Lane, Holly Road, Swan Street, Station Road, the station forecourt, the Leisure Centre, Grove Street and Alderley Road. We collected 10 bags altogether.

8 volunteers met at The Honey Bee on Saturday 9th November. We picked along the A538 (Altrincham Rd) and collected a total of 16 bags plus various hub caps and other items. Viv, who regularly picks in this area, reported that “It was absolutely dreadful – I’ve never seen it so bad”.

 

We were disappointed to see that the glass in the bus shelter (near the Airport Inn Hotel) had been vandalised. We have asked our contact at Cheshire East to report this to the relevant department.

 

 

Anyway –  at least 26 bags at our 2 scheduled picks contributing to a total of 38 over the past month.

In other news :

  • We have renewed our annual insurance.
  • We held an “Extraordinary General Meeting”  on Monday 28th October to agree changes to our constitution. The main changes are because of the recent GDPR requirements and because we have made a decision (after consulting with CVS Cheshire East) that only people of 18 years and over can be Wilmslow Clean Team members. People under 18 are very welcome to attend litter picks but only if they are supervised by a responsible adult.
  • We are liaising with Lindow School who would like to borrow our equipment. Year 4 are learning about things they can do to support their local community.  This is a fantastic initiative.

Well done everyone – see you in December

October 2019 Litter Pick Summary And Other News

10 volunteers met at The Kings Arms on Wednesday 2nd October. We spread out in all directions including the area around the High School.  We collected 12 bags.  We also collected some recyclables that were taken home and put in the silver bins.  We would like to thank The Kings Arms for allowing us to use their car park.

9 volunteers met at Lindow Common on Saturday 5th October. We collected a further 10 bags. We were very pleased to welcome 2 new members. We spread out covering the local area including Racecourse Road, Altrincham Road, Kings Road, the Jim Evison playing fields and Greaves Road.

A few volunteers also went out on solo picks so our total over the last month was 26 bags and our year to date total is 380.

We were happy to arrange a loan of our litter picking equipment to the local cub group on Tuesday 1st October. They went out with 6 hoops and collected 2 bags of litter on the Carnival Fields and the around the neighbouring scout hut. Well done to everyone involved.

We are continuing our efforts to make contact with the Colshaw Farm volunteers who have recently started some good community work to litter pick in that area.

Our committee continues to work on refinements to our constitution with a further meeting planned for the end of October.

Network Rail reacted to our recent request to clean up the embankments at the “Dean Row Road” railway bridge – but they only cleaned one of the four corners.  They have re-opened the incident we logged and are going to chase their contractor to find out why they didn’t do a full clean up properly.

 

 

Litter Picking Summary 4th + 7th September 2019

With the summer holidays almost over, 11 volunteers met at Bank Square on Wednesday 4th September. We covered all of the town centre, down as far as Sainsbury’s car park, the Leisure Centre, the Station, the Carrs, and the town end of Chapel Lane.  We collected at least 9 bags along with some recyclabes.

One of our volunteers discovered that one of the benches from inside Sainsburys was lying behind the cycle rack. She asked a supervisor why this was and was told, ‘Not our bench’. She checked the bench again that it was theirs – it had a plaque dedicated to a former employee, Harold Jupp. This time, a manager agreed and said it would be brought back inside!

We were pleased to welcome a new volunteer at Wednesday’s pick.

9 volunteers met in Summerfields car park on Saturday 7th September. We focused on the surrounding area including Dean Row Road, the slip road and footpath alongside the A34, Colshaw Drive (starting at both ends but not quite reaching the middle) and Oakenclough Close. We collected 14 bags of litter, a tyre and some recyclables.

There seemed to be less litter than normal on Colshaw Drive. Some of our volunteers were told that the local residents association have been doing their own litter picks and have had equipment donated by CEC so that they can make this a regular event. We are going to try to make contact with them again so that we can liaise and co-ordinate future litter picks.

We found a mattress that had been fly-tipped on the service road by rear entrance to the cemetery. We will be reporting this to ANSA.  A few months ago we made contact with Network Rail to report the litter on the embankments where Dean Row Road crosses over the railway. We checked progress today and unfortunately they have only cleared the easy bit where there are steps down. So – we will report back to them and see if the other 3 embankments can be dealt with.

We collected at least 23 bags of litter at our 2 scheduled September picks along with some more bags collected by our voluneers on solo picks.

Well done everyone – hope to see you in October.

 

Litter Picking Summary 7th + 10th August 2019

We have been very busy this month with 5 organised litter picks, since the last update, rather than the usual 2 – along with some fantastic solo efforts!

9 volunteers met at The Carnival Fields on Monday 8th July to help with the clean up operation after The Wilmslow Show. We collected a bag each.

There were 2 “In Bloom” judging events this year. We did an extra litter pick on Monday 22nd July so that the town was looking at its best for the regional round of judging. 10 volunteers turned up for an evening pick. We collected 12 bags of litter altogether in and around the town centre. 6 additional bags were collected on solo picks.

11 volunteers met at The Honey Bee at 10:00 on Wednesday 7th August. Again – we were delighted to welcome 2 new volunteers. We focused on Altrincham Road down to the airport tunnels – traditionally one of the worst areas for litter in Wilmslow. We collected 15 bags plus several hub caps.  We also reported some fly tipping, near the airport fire station, to ANSA.  The 2nd of our “In Bloom” events was on the same evening – this time in preparation for the National judging (Wilmslow is representing the North West this year). About 8 volunteers met up in the evening collecting a bag each.

Wilmslow Clean Team Stanneylands Road 10-AUG-19Last but not least, despite blustery weather, 8 volunteers met at The Parish Hall, on Saturday 10th August. The park was reasonably litter free due to recent activity for the Bloom judging. We spread out covering the Carr’s (to Twinnies Bridge), Stanneylands Road, Prestbury Road, The Memorial Gardens and the footpaths near Trust Ford. We collected at least 9 bags along with hub caps and some recyclables. We also informed ANSA about a large gas canister that has been washed up near Twinnies Bridge.

So – a massive monthly litter haul of 60 bags.  Well done everyone. Fingers crossed for the “In Bloom” judging later in the year.

We also reported some dangerous overhanging vegetation (on Altrincham Road) to Cheshire East Council

 

 

 

Litter Picking Summary 3rd + 6th July 2019

11 volunteers met at Bank Square, on a lovely sunny day, on Wednesday 3rd June. We covered a large area of the town including Bank Square, Grove Street, Church Street, the Railway Station, Hawthorn Lane, Kennerleys Lane, Carrwood Road, Lacey Green and the Town Centre itself.  This could well be a record turn-out for volunteers. We picked 13 bags of litter. We were delighted to welcome 2 new volunteers to this event.

Wilmslow Clean Team Lacey Green July 20194 volunteers met, on a miserable Saturday morning, at Lacey Green Park. We covered the surrounding area. One of us headed off to Stanneylands Road whilst another ventured up Manchester Road as far as the lights at the Bluebell Garage. We collected 5 bags altogether.

 

So – 18 bags altogether at the July picks plus some more on solo picks

Thanks and well done everyone.

Litter Picking Summary 5th + 8th June 2019

9 volunteers met at Summefields oWilmslow Clean Team Summerfields June 2019n Wednesday 9th June. We collected 17 bags of litter around the Summerfields/ Colshaw Drive area. We also collected various mattresses, supermarket trollies and other random items. We reported all this for collection by Ansa.

 

 

On a very wet Saturday 9 volunteers met on Chapel Lane. We spread out in different directions and collected 8 bags of litter from the surrounding streets. We were especially grateful to Chelsea flowers for providing hot drinks and The Farmer’s Arms for letting us park.

So – 25 bags altogether in our 2 scheduled June picks.