Right royal blitz on street litter in Dorchester

Youngsters from the Thomas Hardye School and Dorchester Middle School joined a team of litter pickers to help tidy up their playing fields and the surrounding area.

The clean-up operation was led by Dorchester’s Tesco store as part of the Spring Clean for the Queen national campaign.

Support was also provided by local councillor David Barrett, the Dorchester Stop the Drop anti litter campaign, Dorchester Youth Club, Dorset County Council and Dorset Fire and Rescue Service.

The litter pick started at the middle school and then Rebecca Dodman and Kaye Chittenden from the Thomas Hardye School organised students in clearing up their fields as they filled up several bags of rubbish in just one hour.

A spokesman for the school said: “This session made students aware of just how much litter is left behind by their peers.

“Our hope is that, as awareness increases, everyone will think twice about dropping litter and that our local environment can change for the better.”

Tesco’s community champion Lisa Bedford said: “The staff at Tesco would like to say a big thank you to all the local residents and community groups that helped with the litter pick. It was fantastic that people gave up their time to come along to help make our community a cleaner, greener place.”

She added: “Also thank you to Bob Kerr from Stop the Drop who provided the fluorescent jackets and Dorset County Council for providing bags and gloves and collecting the rubbish from both schools.”

The Stop the Drop campaign has been striving to raise awareness of the issue of rubbish in the town in recent months.

At a meeting of Dorchester Town Council earlier in the year it called on members to acknowledge the town’s problems with litter and has supported a number of litter picks that have been led by local residents or community groups.

Areas cleaned include around Dorchester West Station, Bowling Alley Walks and the footpath from Coburg Road to Maiden Castle Road.