The mild weather played its part in ensuring that we had a good turnout for the Big Spring Clean litter picking event in Blackhall Colliery this morning.
Streets in the areas around Chicken's Green, the Resource Centre, the Co-op store and East Street were cleared of litter along with the stretch of road between St Joseph's RC church and the Yohden Hall care complex and parts of the housing estate nearby.
In acknowledging that clearing litter from our village streets can be a positive and rewarding experience, there is also a downside when it's realised that a tiny minority of thoughtless people are prepared turn our streets into open litter bins and then expect others to clean up after them. A vast majority of our residents are responsible people and take their litter home or put it in the bins available, but the few who feel themselves above the law persist in making our village look untidy to other residents, visitors and travellers passing through.
Over the past few weeks the council has gradually improved its response to this problem and is returning slowly to the efficient service we had until last year (see post dated 5 March 2013 for further details). The event today was meant to be additional to this service and not a replacement. However if just a few people took a little more pride in their environment Blackhall and the rest of our villages would be much pleasanter places in which to live and work.
Any specific areas requiring closer attention will be reported to the council's environment team first thing on Monday morning. And to finish on a more positive note I would like to thank everyone who took part in this morning's event, especially Julie Bradshaw who played a key part in organising it and who shows such passion in her determination to keep our streets clean. Well done to all!