The Sefton Coast Creative kids highlight selfishness of litter louts
IT IS often easy to over complicate issues – but sometimes it just takes fresh eyes to cut to the core of the matter.
Step forward then members of the 4th Crosby Scout Group who were appalled by the mountains of rubbish left by visitors to the coast during recent heatwaves.
Amelie, Evie and Isaac took pen and paint to paper and drafted a series of posters stressing the importance of keeping the coastline and its beaches clean.
Group Scout leader Catherine Ashcroft and assistant Scout leader Andy Mageer from the group explained: “The children felt strongly that it shouldn’t be down to volunteers, council workers or anyone else to clear up after people, everyone needs to take responsibility and start taking their litter home or putting it in bins provided.
“Their plan is to start by making a difference in Crosby, and then Merseyside, the whole of the NW and then the UK.”
The posters were sent to the office of Sefton Central MP Bill Esterson, from where they were forwarded to Green Sefton.
We liked the posters so much we’ve incorporated them in the latest banners to go up at beach entrances from Crosby to Southport.
The artwork is great, and it got us to thinking that there may be other young people out there who would like to contribute posters too.
So Green Sefton ran a quick competition on social media asking young people up to the age of 11 to design poster artwork appealing to visitors to respect the landscape and its wildlife during their visits to the Sefton coast.
The artwork will be used to illustrate future banners and posters asking for people to be responsible with their rubbish.
If the bins are full, take your rubbish home.
The concept is easy enough – if you can carry the stuff onto the beach or into the dune system, you can carry it out again.
And as more skips have been positioned at beach entrances from Crosby to Southport, for folk to drop their trash in after a day at the beach, there’s just no excuse to dump rubbish.
There’s never a reason to leave behind a mess on the coast – presumably the very reason folk come here is to enjoy the open spaces, but how can anyone’s visit be improved by having to negotiate the piles of rubbish dumped during warm spells?
Finally, this seems the perfect opportunity to thank all the volunteers who have tidied up along the coast, from individual families to the long-standing community beach clean groups at Crosby, Hightown, Formby, Ainsdale and Southport.
Any activity on council-managed land must first be approved by Green Sefton.
As current restrictions stand, we cannot host groups of more than six people, but are currently inviting would-be volunteers to contact Green Sefton if they are prepared to help out at short notice, meeting the Green Sefton team at agreed points on the coast during busy periods.
If you are interested in getting involved, please email me at john. dempsey@sefton.gov.uk