Volunteers picked up a tonne of rubbish in the Longmead estate during a litter pick.

Ward councillors delivered leaflets to the whole estate to gather support, and many willing residents gave up a couple of hours to spruce up the estate.

Cllr Vince Romagnuolo, who briefed the volunteers, said: “We’ve noticed over recent years that more and more litter was appearing in the ward.

"Everyone knows that the government's cuts to councils have forced cuts to services, and during our weekly doorstep conversations with our residents we’ve become tired of just blaming the government and council for these cuts.

"So we decided to organise this litter pick to improve the ward.”

Part of the Keep Britain Tidy spring clean campaign, the group noted many larger items that were picked up later by the council - on top of the tonne of litter.

Cllr Romagnuolo said: "It’s important that people take more responsibility and take their litter home, but we’ll also be pushing the council to provide more bins in the area to make it easier dispose of litter responsibly.

"Following the overwhelming response by our residents, we’ll be organising further litter picks in other parts of the ward in the near future.”