Litter blighting scenic shoreline causes Fareham council to take action

The council has said the lockdown period has seen a ‘huge’ increase in the amount of rubbish and litter being left behind at the beach at Hill Head and along the shoreline to Strawberry Fields in Warsash.

In response, the authority has installed a number of new triple capacity bins across Warsash and the beach areas.

It comes as a newly formed litter picking group filled ten bags of rubbish and found 20 litres of radiator oil during their first beach and woodland clean earlier this month.

The group’s founder, Locks Heath resident Michael Hill said: ‘It’s very good to hear the council is installing new bins.

‘I would like to think that it will make a good difference when people come across a full bin – but you can take a donkey to water but you can’t make it drink.

‘It’s partly about people putting in the effort to deal with their rubbish.’

The council has provided the group with gloves, bin bag, and litter pickers.

But some visitors continue to leave bags of rubbish alongside bins that are already full, which is ‘as bad as just dumping’ their rubbish, according Councillor Simon Martin, Fareham Borough Council’s executive member for Streetscene.

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He said: ‘We are very proud of the clean and cared for parks and open spaces throughout the borough, but recently they have been blighted because some people have not taken responsibility for the rubbish they have created.

‘We are urging people to not be rubbish about cleaning up after themselves when they use our parks and open spaces. If you bring it with you to the park or the beach, take it home with you when you leave, and dispose of rubbish in your bin at home.

‘We are urging people to not be rubbish about cleaning up after themselves when they use our parks and open spaces.

‘If you bring it with you to the park or the beach, take it home with you when you leave, and dispose of rubbish in your bin at home.’

This month Portsmouth City Council launched an anti-littering campaign, aimed largely at Southsea Common, with the slogan Don’t Be a Din, Put it in the Bin after it was revealed that the amount of rubbish collected had more than doubled from last May to this May.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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