You may be aware that the Parish has had to cancel our twice-yearly litter pick dates and have had to rely on Parishioners to keep our village free from litter.

Because of this, we are asking Parishioners to get out between the 28th May and the 13th June and join a national effort to clean up our local environments in ‘The Keep Britain Tidy Great Spring Clean’ event. The Parish Council holds equipment which it can loan to anyone in the Parish who would like to join in. We would like to thank Vicki for the pictures and the article below. Vicki is a university student who lives in the village and has already taken advantage of the equipment loan scheme. Keep Britain Tidy have produced several resources to help with this years campaign including this downloadable sheet for Litter Bingo. Further information and guidance can be found at https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/get-involved/support-our-campaigns/great-british-spring-clean Including how to get started and Covid-19 guidance to help you litter pick safely.

Travelling around the local area during lock-down, it has become clear that littering our precious environment is not just a tourist habit, it is a local problem too. Our roadside verges and our green spaces are being treated like dust bins, even without tourists. It is up to every individual to take responsibility for this huge environmental disaster.

Vicki’s Article: Hello everyone I’m Vicki and I’m a fairly new sea champion, in fact I think I have only been a sea champion during these unusual lockdown times! Before the madness I would often be at local beach cleans or just picking the rubbish up that I would come across whilst walking my two dogs. I’ve always found the strandline to be a fascinating place and walking the same stretch of beach on a fairly regular basis never gets old, as no two trips are ever the same!

Mermaid’s purses have always been one of my favourite finds but I have recently gotten very into sea glass – turns out it’s very addictive to collect and trying to find ‘rare’ colours has become a bit of a game! Although, wouldn’t it be great if egg cases and sea glass were the only things to be found amongst seaweeds on the strandline? Marine litter and particularly plastics have become a normal sight on most beaches, with scientists predicting by 2050 that 99% of seabirds will have plastic inside their bodies.

I learnt that fact whilst working on an assignment for university and it inspired me to borrow some litter picking equipment from my village council and get out there. With restrictions it meant I couldn’t head to the beach, so I went for the next best option – the village stream!

You never know what you’re going to find when litter picking or beach cleaning and over the years, I have come across a few fairly odd items. Turns out the stream wasn’t any different and not long after getting stuck in I came across this plastic broccoli! This was the highlight find and although filling an entire bin bag in approximately 60m was quite shocking, this little green toy kept the spirit up.

After a good scrub at home, the broccoli has gone from being a piece of rubbish in the environment to becoming a new fridge magnet Why not see what strange finds you can come across during your daily exercise and together we can do our bit to make the planet that little bit greener, one piece at a time.