Great Lever 'big clean up' a huge success as volunteers flock to help

Together they cleaned up the streets of Great Lever with more than 90 volunteers taking part to pick up litter and fly-tipping in areas where fly tipping is an issue.

Streets cleaned included Rupert Street, Deal Street, Meredith Street, Alder Street and Beechwood Street and also on the Pennington Road side.

Following several group litter picks over time, fly-tipping and litter issues are still an ongoing problem in this area.

And to combat this litter pickers from all over Bolton joined forces - including volunteers from Amazon, McDonalds and the 12 Bolton Rose Hill Scouts and Cubs

Cllr Sylvia Crossley took part in the event (Image: NQ)Karen Liptrot, of the Highfield and New Bury Litter Pickers and Community Group in Farnworth, organised the day after seeing large amounts of rubbish dumped in the Great Lever area back in March.

Karen said: “Bolton Borough Litter Picking Volunteers have been down to this area now about three or four times in the past 12 months and cleared a vast amount of waste from the embankment off Rupert Street.

@theboltonnews Litter pickers and volunteers came together on Friday to take part in a big clean up in Great Lever. Read more on The Bolton News website! #LitterPicking #GreatLever #TheBoltonNews ♬ Sunrise - Official Sound Studio

“Following on from that I decided to make contact with the south enforcement team at Bolton Council and the Great Lever Ward councillors to ask if we could plan something together to action this area, to help the residents around here to improve where they live.

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“From that I met the south enforcement team down on site and we did a walk round and we identified that a lot of the waste that residents dispose of is waste that can be recycled, and we spotted that a lot of the recycling bins in the back streets were contaminated.

“ I asked if it would be possible for a bin wagon to be in attendance on the action day to empty all the contaminated bins and give all the residents around here a fresh start because some residents get themselves in a bit of a pickle and they don’t know who to turn to, who to ask for help and they just need something like this just to give them a fresh start.

“The councillors have also offered their support and funded three skips.

12 Bolton Rose Hill Scouts and Cubs took part in the litter pick (Image: NQ)“We have had so many volunteers coming out to help, we had about 80 or 90 volunteers.

“Hopefully from this action day residents will see that people actually do care about them and do care about where they live, and that people do want to help them and that we are volunteers from across Bolton who are here to support them and help them make their community a better place to live and encourage behaviour change.”

Carlos DaSilva, the Senior South Environmental Enforcement Officer said: “I have been doing this job for nearly a year now and have realised that most of the problems in this area of Bolton were fly-tipping, excess waste and recycling.

“And because people struggle with normal household waste they end up contaminating the recycling bins and everything just blows out of proportion.

“We have come together for this action day to help give them a fresh start, empty the recycling bins and the goal is to stop the excess waste and fly-tipping around this area.

“There was a great response with so many volunteers coming out to help and it has been a success, and we are looking to replicate it in other areas of the borough.”

Yasmin Qureshi MP also attended the event, thanking volunteers for their efforts.

She said: “It is a tremendous event. Apart from the obvious part of cleaning up litter, I think when residents see this happening it brings home to them the fact that we need to keep the area clean and tidy.

One of the skips filled with waste (Image: NQ)“This is a very visible event and hopefully will make residents think that they should also make sure their area is clean and to ensure that it continues to remain clean.

“I am very grateful to all the volunteers who come out and do these litter picks and I want to thank Karen who organises things like this and the volunteers for all the fantastic work they do.”

Cllr Mohammed Iqbal also attended the event, he said: “Events like this are important because we have a fly-tipping issue in Great Lever and events like this provide an awareness to the community to take care and ownership of their area and stop the issue of fly-tipping.”

If you have a story or something you would like to highlight in the community, please email me at chloe.wilson@newsquest.co.uk or DM me on X @chloewjourno.