Village litter pickers are binned by elf ‘n’ safety

IT is a village that prides itself on being spotlessly clean and tidy thanks to its army of volunteer litter pickers.

But residents of Whitestone in Devon have been forced to abandon their next clean-up – after town hall chiefs said they were not insured to go on roads with speed limits over 30mph.

Teignbridge Council said community groups were required to have suitable policies in place before they could be issued with equipment.

It said any work on roads had to ‘comply with legislation for the safety of volunteers and road users’. A spokesman for the parish council, which leads the tidy up, said it now had no alternative but to cancel it because all but one of its country lanes had unrestricted speed limits, meaning volunteers were uninsured.

Alan Connett, a Lib Dem councillor on the district council, said: ‘This is another example of the way health and safety is being used as an excuse to strangle community activity.

‘It seems even the humble litter pick now has to be wrapped in regulation and bureaucracy when all residents want to do is keep their village tidy.’