At last - a season of thorough litter picks on the country park

As part of the People in the Park initiative, the Community Forum has managed to secure an agreement with the Community Payback Scheme, managed by Wiltshire Probation Trust, to come onto the park on a regular basis to conduct a thorough litter pick.

The work team is comprised of offenders who are required to do community service. They are transported on site in Probation mini buses and supervised to strict standards while they are here by the Community Payback Supervisor. Offenders are monitored and scored throughout the day to ensure they comply with Probation standards.

The team was on the country park last Monday, April 19th. John Taylor, our committee member with special focus on litter, spent an hour with the group in the morning and then again in the afternoon before they finished. He was extremely impressed by the endeavour of the group as well as the way they got on with the job.

There was a lot of movement through the park during the day and many people asked what was happening. We were a little anxious that residents might be disturbed by the idea of a Community Payback team operating on the park, but everyone seemed impressed and pleased at what was taking place, and there were no hostile or adverse reactions.

The men took their task very seriously, going into all the problem areas which tend to get missed by the regular contractors, such as ditches, hedgerows and bushes, where the litter gets caught in the undergrowth and hardly ever seems to be removed. John Taylor went right round the Park afterwards and, apart from places where access is nigh impossible, they had cleaned up very effectively. The total litter collected was no less than 37 bags.

The brook has been a key issue for the Community Forum in recent months, and we were delighted to to get it cleared of overgrown vegetation recently. It has proved very difficult to get the council contractors to commit to clearing the brook of rubbish, however. We were therefore delighted when the Community Payback organiser agreed for her team to undertake this task, subject to accessibility on the day. The brook is much cleaner after their efforts, with several large items removed and, as of last week, awaiting collection by the council. They had to leave a shopping trolley in situ, as it proved too difficult to remove, but this has been highlighted to the council officer.

The Community Payback Scheme has agreed to conduct three litter picks at quarterly intervals. The fact that they will be getting to all those areas that other litter picks never seem to reach should make a real difference to the country park.