Appalling canal litter

I HAVE walked along the Grand Union Canal from Watford to Abbots Langley, in Hertfordshire, for more than 20 years.

After a longer than usual layoff due to injury, I went there a few days ago with my litter picker and was appalled at what I found. There were two broken folding stools, several sweetcorn tins, a luncheon meat tin, many containers that had obviously held maggots or worms, hook packets and discarded line.

I filled two bin liners but could easily have filled two more. I do not blame anglers for the empty drink cans and food wrappers, but, by coincidence, the largest accumulations of these were near the most popular pegs.

The worst stretch was from the wooden footbridge with The Grove golf course on one side and the school sports pitches on the other, to a few hundred yards past the motorway bridge. Please do not think I am anti-angling – I was an angler for many years. Michael Blake, email