Litter Pick Up in New Town

 

Despite some atrocious weather yesterday morning, a determined band of volunteers set out to spend nearly an hour cleaning litter from New Town streets. Some Greens, a Labour supporter and Colchester's Conservative MP Will Quince made a cross-party effort to raise awareness of how we can all do our bit to help to make Colchester litter-free. If everyone just took a small amount of time to pick up a few bits of litter near to their homes then we'd be a fair way to cracking the problem. In just a short time the bags of litter below were collected:

 

Once this was sorted into recyclables and non-recyclables I was surprised by the sheer amount of cans some people deem fit to just throw onto our streets.

 

LITTER in Colchester: Your Chance To Do Something About It

Want to do something about litter in Colchester? Then come along to an awareness raising litter pick up in New Town on Saturday 21st November at 10.00 am. The PLACE = meet up outside the Co-Op on Wimpole Road (next to the funeral parlour). The TASK: go out to the nearby streets and pick up five pieces of litter or more if you wish. This should take no more than 20 minutes (probably much less).Then meet back to pool the hoard.
The aim is to raise awareness of the problem and how a small amount of litter picking by everyone can stop New Town and the rest of Colchester looking like a dump. This is non-party political and all are welcome.

LITTER in New Town

I'm increasingly concerned about the amount of litter I'm seeing around New Town. In one twenty minute trawl this morning I picked up a whole bin bag (see above) of rubbish just from Morant Road, King Stephen Road and part of Winnock Road. I mean the kind of low-level casual litter that makes an area look generally a bit shabby. Beer cans left on the pavement or on road signs and telephone wiring boxes are commonplace along with fast food packaging and plastic bottles. For some reason there were a fair number of plastic coat hangers thrown into the road and half-drunk bottles of lucozade. This kind of littering creates the impression of a lack of pride in an area and the last thing and street needs is to gain a reputation as 'a bit of a dump'.
The solution to this is however is a basic and easy one. If just one person in every New Town Street spent 20 minutes on a weekend day just walking up and down it picking up the most obvious litter a huge difference can be made. I've started doing this on Morant Road.
See below for some examples of the litter I saw this morning.

BAG IT AND BIN IT AND THAT WAY WE'LL WIN IT!


Some of the perennial beer cans, a tray of chips dumped on a hedge next to the pavement and general mess:

Military Road to be Resurfaced!

I understand that Military Road will now be resurfaced from 05/01/15. Thanks to blog readers who reported the potholes and to people from all political parties, particularly Councillor Sue Lissimore, who pushed for this to happen.

The State of Colchester's Military Road : Potholes Galore

The current state of Military Road is completely unacceptable, yet despite it having been in this condition for a very long time nothing has been done bar a bit of bodging. The potholes in the stretch nearest to the St Botolphs roundabout are massive and on both sides of the road. It is a very busy road at certain times in the day and its a wonder that cars haven't been damaged. I've taken a series of photographs as evidence and will send them to Essex County Council Highways Dept. Lets hope something gets done. See below: