Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Growing clean-up
bin bag for company. From his home in St Michael’s Road, Cllr Westgate ventures out several times a week to clear rubbish or remove graffiti in the St Stephen’s ward he has represented since 2011.
“A lot of it is about just having pride in your area,” he said.
“With the Beverley Meadow and the old St Stephen’s village green, this is one of the most beautiful parts of the city.
“I hate seeing the rubbish and the vandalism, so I’ll clear it up. I’ve even got special antigraffiti wipes I use to remove the marker pen and spray paint on surfaces.”
Cllr Westgate is particularly pleased to have removed graffiti from signs and telecoms cabinets around the Beverley Meadow and along the St Stephen’s footpath which runs under the railway line and joins Station Road West.
He also used special longhandled litter-pickers to reach over fencing to clear litter from the railway embankment.
“Keeping it clean just enhances the whole area,” he said. “It makes it a better place to live.”
Cllr Westgate, who ran a fancy dress shop in Northgate for 20 years, retired almost a decade ago. He formed the St Michael’s Road Area Residents’ Association and then decided that one of the best ways to help improve the city was being elected to council.
He takes over as litter tsar from Barton ward’s Cllr Oliver Fawcett, the first holder of the post officially titled “litter liaison”.
At the meeting of the Canterbury area member panel on September 12, Cllr Westgate will deliver a progress report on the city’s anti-litter strategy.
“I can’t say too much about it at the moment,” he says. “But I have been evaluating some of the problems that we are faced with.
“We are all familiar with the issues of litter, fly-tipping and graffiti that have a detrimental effect on our society. This is a national problem, but I am keen to do all I can to address these problems locally.”
One of these methods is to encourage others to join his crusade and follow his lead in getting out on to the street to pick up mess.
In just 45 minutes on Monday morning, Cllr Westgate filled a bin bag with everything from beer cans and car parts to a discarded iron.
“More and more people are going out and doing their bit these days,” he said.
“It’s a battle, but it’s a battle that those who do graffiti or drop litter won’t win.”