Cleaner future in

Community spirit was alive and well in Canterbury as hundreds of people took part in the Great British Spring Clean at the weekend. Anti-litter campaigner Sian Pettman explains how attitudes to dumping waste are changing.

“Isn’t it Serco’s job to clear up litter in Canterbury?” people frequently ask.

Well, yes it is, and so it should remain. But street cleaning is a victim of recent local government cuts and this has led to a deterioration in the state of our streets and parks, a depressing trail of litter along almost every footpath and rural road.

This, however, is not the whole story. Too many people have grown used to dropping litter whenever and wherever they choose, without any regard for the consequences.

Serco cannot deal with this alone. We need a broader community response, both to tackle the problems and to challenge the litter culture.

This is where community litter- picks come in. They give a level of “value-added” that is no longer visible in public services.

They also show how strongly many local people feel about the environment in which they live – and this message is getting through.

At a Canterbury City Council budget meeting two weeks ago, councillors voted to increase spending on street cleaning and appoint more enforcement officers. This is a response to community concern. Litter and enforcement are one of the very few areas which are benefiting from a budget increase this year.

I am often asked why the Friends of Kingsmead Field is so involved in the local litter campaign. The answer is that when we started the field campaign, we realised that litter was a serious problem and that we needed to take the initiative to bring it under control.

We installed our own bin and adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards any litter on the field. We then began to realise there were similar problems elsewhere in Kingsmead and this led us to

University student community champions and St Michael’s Road and Area Residents’ joint litter-pick on Sunday morning