Speak up to keep city clean

One of the key planks of our Clean Streets campaign was public involvement.

If the people don’t take the campaign to heart, it would never work.

When it comes to the state of their community, public pride always comes to the fore.

We care about the state of our neighbourhoods.

An Echo survey revealed litter to be one of the top bugbears of the people of Sunderland, and since we launched our Clean Streets campaign we have been bowled over by the involvement from the community.

The latest to put their heads above the parapet are Darrin Carlisle and his fellow veterans.

Sick of mess left by yobs who have turned their neighbourhood into a dumping ground and race track, Darrin and pals have teamed up to clean up South Hylton.

The problems in the area have escalated in recent months, with Darrin particularly concerned by containers dumped which he believes may contain toxic chemicals.

He has highlighted the problems in a YouTube video and even set up his own Facebook page called Team South Hylton to encourage people to report offenders.

And he’s pulled no punches in his takedown of the fly-tippers and rogue riders plaguing the area.

He said: “We are plagued daily by fly-tippers, motorbikes on paths and quads ripping the riverside to bits, it’s an embarrassment.

“We are starting to look like landfill. People on my page have had enough...”

Good on you Darrin. We need more people like him to rally the troops and take action.

As he says, if people don’t report the troublemakers, nothing will be done. If you want clean streets, speak up. It’s as simple as that.