Islanders and visitors alike are being asked to help keep our beautiful Island tidy and support keeping Isle of Wight parks clean as part of a national campaign.
Keep Britain Tidy’s Love Your Parks Week aims to raise awareness of the issues caused by people who drop rubbish in parks.
The campaign, which runs from Friday 23rd July to Sunday 1st August, is partly in response to the extra 57 tonnes of litter increase that Local Authorities reported collecting on average during the first lockdown alone. The campaign is calling on us all to help love, protect and respect our parks.
This year, more than ever, our parks and green spaces have been a vital lifeline to so many of us during lockdown. Around 9 in 10 people surveyed by Natural England in May 2020 agreed that natural spaces are good for mental health and wellbeing. More than 40% noticed that nature, wildlife, and visiting local green and natural spaces have been even more important to their wellbeing since the pandemic began.
In July 2020, 46% of people responding to the People and Nature Survey by Natural England said they were spending more time outside during the pandemic than before.
Our green spaces have been under immense pressure, with local authorities telling Keep Britain Tidy that on average they collected an extra 57 tonnes (per local authority) of litter during the first lockdown alone.
Cabinet lead for environment and waste, Councillor Jonathan Bacon, said:
“Love Parks Week is chance for all of us to love, protect and respect our beautiful green spaces.
Article continues below this advertisement “As lockdown measures have eased, across the UK there has been a significant minority of people abuse these treasured spaces, with shocking scenes of anti-social behaviour, leading to littering, deposit of human waste and abuse of parks staff.
“Well-targeted enforcement is an important tool in curbing this behaviour, however, we also want to join with Keep Britain Tidy in inspiring people to look after our parks and the key staff who look after them.”
You can report a issues such as fly tip online or by calling the councils waste services on 01983 823777.
More information on the national campaign can be found online at www.keepbritaintidy.org/get-involved/support-our-campaigns/love-parks-week.
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soon to be concreted over island if the environment wreckers known as house builders have their way
I find this offensive after the amount of trees and green space that’s getting lost on this Island to developers. Not to mention Simeon Recreation ground apparently becoming a car park for the school holidays. Hypocrit’s ! Council show US some respect to Our parks !
It was turned down. No cars will be parking in Simeon Park. With the amount of rain were getting recently, good job really, they’d all get stuck!!!
Or, maybe, the council and the government spend some of our tax money on us and employ more street cleaners. I was a street cleaner in the early 20’s for a few years. Not a bad job. Easy money. But council have cut back so much we don’t have the numbers we need.
Besides the street cleaners what about bins ,the full length of Marlborough Rd Ryde has one bin and that is on the other side of the road from the only convenience store!!!!!!
I would have thought it was much harder in the 1920s with the horse manure, stray dogs and endless soot. You must be knocking on Fred. Lol 🙂
Walking to Asda along a nice little country lane leading down from the estate. I’d never seen so much rubbish thrown into hedgerows. i’ve also seen similar in other areas where there are housing estates, Binstead for one. It’s like the powers that be think if only these “disadvantaged” people have a nicer area to live with trees, grass, hedges around, they will be better, but they show no respect for any of it & just see it as dumping grounds for their litter, The same for people who see a lovely wild garden & to them it’s just somewhere to throw their empty cans & burger wrappers into. All they want is concrete around them.
And before anyone says tarring them all with same brush, no, I’m not saying they’re *all* like it, but the ones who are are more noticeable because it only takes a few to ruin it and it seems so prevalent in those areas always.
never works – the dimwits social engineering policy of buying houses in affluent areas and then putting their so called best council tenants in them achieved exactly the opposite of what the do gooders were hoping for. They hoped that being in an affluent area would mean the council tenants would aspire to be better and up their game, however, the reality was that the council tenants acted as they had always done, drove down the standards in the affluent area, then the affluent people moved out. The house prices went down, as did the quality of the buyers and before long, the whole area is down to the level of the council tenants.
That’s what always happens, yes, which is maybe one of the reasons this country has gone downhill so much, where being somewhat chavvy is the order of the day. And not everyone is able to escape by moving away from these people. Not all ‘poor’ people are like the antisocial trashy ones and anyone more quiet, sensitive, and dare i say it, cultured, has to suffer like Hell from being surrounded by these intolerable types, most of whom seem to care nothing for the Natural world and see lovely environmental areas as just somewhere to dump their rubbish, or cut everything down as they don’t appreciate trees and hedgerows, insects, etc.
Community service folk could be employed cleaning up ????
I go out with a bag and a litter grabber and pick up rubbish from my local park and any litter on route gets bagged also. People should start respecting our green spaces. TAKE YOUR RUBBISH HOME OR BIN IT, DON’T DROP IT.