A groundbreaking anti-litter project has been branded a great success and is now set to be rolled out across all schools in Middleton and Belle Isle over the next three years.
Acting on feedback from her community, Councillor Kim Groves (Labour, Middleton Park) arranged to set up the ‘Love where you live’ campaign, based upon the national Keep Britain Tidy scheme.
A team of council officers from the Environmental Action Team goes into local schools and encourages children to take part in the anti-litter message. So far they have worked with children from Westwood Primary, with immediate results at and around the school.
As a part of the project, children took part in a competition to design the new anti-litter sign for the Westwoods Estate. The winning ‘Don’t be a litter bug’ entry is now in place.
Cllr Groves said:
“It has been a real community effort and I want to particularly praise the officers from our local Environmental Action Team for their dedication and results with our children at Westwood Primary. I wish them luck and every success with the other schools in Middleton and Belle Isle.
“In these times, when we are trying to make less money go further, this scheme is a great example of how officers can work with all in the community to enhance local neighbourhoods.”
Dave Fisher of the council’s envornmental services locality team) said:
“The amount of effort the children have put into this project has been amazing. The standard of work by the children was really impressive, and the decision to pick a winner was extremely hard. In the end we went with the ‘Don’t be a litter bug’ poster, but really all of the entries from the children were fantastic.
“Given the success of the project, this is definitely something that we would like to extend to other schools in our community.”
Love Where You Live is a campaign that aims to inspire, encourage and enable local residents to make where they live, work and play the kind of place they really want it to be. It’s about local people making a difference, whether as individuals, groups, local authorities or companies.
Westwood Primary School’s ‘love where you live’ project was also visited by Hilary Benn MP.
