Morpeth Litter Group

Hi everyone, would you be able to help our partner GMDT‘s Environment team on either Wednesday 6th November or Thursday 7th November where they will be deweeding the flowerbeds down the side of the new Leisure Centre. GMDT’s environment team will be there from 12:30pm to 3pm? Even 1 hour of your time would help.

GMDT is MLG’s subsidiary partner where the Environment director dai richards endeavours to fight the fight against litter by making areas attractive so it discourages littering.

If you can help please let Dai know by emailing him on [email protected].

The weather today was great, a sunny autumn afternoon, warm for the whole time. A team of 19 came along and all of the 8 planned routes were able to be covered, clearing 27 bags from around the Town Centre plus 3 bags around the Station front / Coopies Lane road.

My sincere thanks to all the volunteers who were able to come along – we really do make a difference.

A lovely gesture from the Joiners Arms offering the volunteer a coffee – it is always great to be appreciated for our efforts. The scale of cigarette butts was again awful, it is hoped NCC’s KBT/NCC Litter in Drains project that starts in November will encourage people to dispose of their cigarette butts properly into the blue bins – look out for the colourful posters.

During my planning for the Blitz feedback from 1 traffic warden told me that people come to Morpeth because it is so litter free – NCC’s Drains project needs shop owners / businesses to support the initiative, it will clearly help to increase footfall into the town.

Put this in your diary, our final Litter Blitz for 2024 will be on Sunday 24th November from 1 - 2:30pm, hope you can make it.

It appears the Sun will have his hat on Sunday 27th October.

We will be hitting the Town Centre again – plus if numbers are large enough to cover all routes, we can complete the clean up of the Coopies Lane road along the Railway line that was only partly completed in the September Litter Blitz.

We will meet 12:45pm at Goose Hill Car park with the Litter Blitz taking place between 1pm – 2:30pm.

To help with the planning the no. of routes can you let me know if you can come along to by emailing me on [email protected]

17 people came along to help clean up the town – see the no. of bags collected – it really was needed, the town was an awful mess!

Wouldn’t it be lovely if we didn’t have to do this and people stopped littering.

37 bags were collected plus 2 Fly tipping reports raised with NCC. The scale of litter was too big for 17 people and we couldn’t complete all the routes.

It really is unbelievable how much litter has been thrown around in the 12 week period since our last Litter Blitz.

Thank you to everyone who were able to come along – it is very much appreciated.

Our next litter blitz will be Sunday 27th October, meet 12:45pm, Litter blitz 1-2:30pm.
I expect we will again be in the Town Centre!

Morpeth Litter Blitz - tomorrow meet 12:45pm at Goose Hill car park. Litter Blitz 1-pm - 2:30-pm

Town is in a mess after our summer break - can you spare a couple of hours?

let me know if you can make it.

Dai Richards KBT Ambassador - Morpeth Litter Group

Sunday 29th SEPTEMBER 2024 - LITTER BLITZ - Meeting at Goose Hill car park - meet 12:45 - Blitz 1pm - 2:30pm

Everyone is invited to come along and try and clean-up our lovely town centre.

If you can help please let Dai (KBT Ambassador) know you can help - send him an email to [email protected].

Insurance provided by Keep Britain Tidy

New area to share your litter picking news and updates

Check out our new volunteer group area on Facebook, this is open to everyone and is an area where you can share your images and litter picking stories. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1069265391459189/

A team of 13 or 14 people helped on this year’s Bank Holiday weekend, 3 mornings Saturday , Sunday and Monday, starting 8am finishing about 10am.

The last morning is always a challenge since we need to make sure the ground is clear of shards of plastic (crushed pint glasses), can/bottle tops, cigarette butts etc. so the fields are safe for sheep and cattle to go back into.
This cleanup always takes a bit longer and finished about 11:30am.

The photos below were taken by one of our volunteers Ray Palombella over the last 2 days, Sunday and Monday.

Team having Sunday + Monday breakfast
Scale of litter before
Cleanup completed

Feedback from Campers:
One of our volunteers was told by a camper they travel to many music festivals, ours is the best for keeping the site litter free.

We have a fantastic set of volunteers – showing what they can do, for me they are the best Litter Pickers in the UK.

Can I thank everyone for helping over the last 3 days – your support helps us to do so many things in the next year.

For the past 2 years Morpeth Litter Group have supported the Party in the Park event by picking up the litter that accumulates around the site after the previous night shows. Morpeth Litter Group receives a donation for doing this and the money is used to purchase the following:

a. Bulbs for the Railway Station Landscape project - Front
b. Bulbs for the rear of the station and path down to Allery Banks entrance
c. Equipment to help Junior schools adopt an area around their school – new Hoop rings, new Litter Pickers

Can you spare max 2 hours on either of the following days for the August Bank Holiday Party in the Park – music events are Friday 23rd August, Saturday 24th August and Sunday 25th August.

PARTY IN THE PARK MORPETH 2024

Would you be able to help , if yes can you let me know which days you can support us by Litter Picking on these mornings:

Saturday morning 24th August
Sunday morning 25th August
Monday morning 26th August

If you would like to help can you send an email to Dai Richards on [email protected].

Lovely article about our town.

It is lovely to see our town being recognised nationally as a litter free town.

‘I visited a beautiful UK market town and it's the perfect place to live' EXCLUSIVE: With its stunning cobbled streets, riverside living and posh shopping opportunities Express reporter Mieka Smiles was very impressed.

GMDT's Picnic in the Park planned for Sunday 14th July has had to be cancelled....

I have received this communique from the GMDT team:

8 of our Litter Group were planning to be helping to keep Carlisle Park Litter free.

GMDT team's communique stated:

“I am very sorry to say that Picnic on Sunday has had to be cancelled. Two GMDT Directors walked around Carlisle Park this morning, and parts of the grassy areas are extremely wet. Any narrow paths to avoid them will quickly become slippy. And the forecast is for rain Saturday, through the night and Sunday. A decision was taken this morning to try and minimise any more time taken up for participants with planning/preparation; I hope you have not been inconvenienced and many thanks for offering your support.”

This early decision will help you all to plan something else on Sunday.

Hasn’t our summer weather just been terrible!

This event is always well attended and loved by everyone especially the children.

The GMDT will have put in so much work planning the event and it will be very disappointing for them having to make this difficult decision.

My apologies for the lateness of this post.

This is the result of the tLitter Blitz that took place in the Town Centre on 30th June.

My thanks to everyone who were able to come along to the Litter Blitz. A total of 16 bags were collected – see photo of the group of volunteers.

With 15 volunteers we were able to complete 7 routes around Morpeth , plus with the support of the NCC team, who have kept Newgate St, Bridge St. and the Square, at 3:30pm the town looked litter free.



It was great to see 2 young people helping us, Michelle’s 4 year old son and 7 year old daughter – they blitzed the Terrace Car park and area around the new Leisure centre – came back with a very full bag.

The bags collected were placed in front of the NEAT depot for disposal.

A lot of concerns were raised by many of the Litter Pickers about the scale of Cigarette butts left in front of businesses in the town – could the cafes, pubs, restaurants, takeaways just put 10 mins aside at the start of the day to sweep up the previous night butts left by their customers – this really would make a big difference!

update: 10th July: there is a defiite improvement in front of some cafes / restaurants on Bridge St. - my thanks to them for trying to clear the cigarette butts (the key blight on our town streets!).

NEXT LITTER BLITZ:
We will taking a summer break for 2 months – the next Litter Blitz will be Sunday 29th September , meet 12:45pm – Blitz starts 1pm – 2:30pm

I have been asked by a number of volunteers to bring forward the start time back to 1pm – they expressed concerns that the blitz was running into their Sunday afternoon.

Regards

Dai Richards
Morpeth’s Keep Britain Tidy Ambassador

Next Litter Blitz - Sunday 30th June - Town Centre

meet 1:45pm at Goose Hill car park, litter Blitz 2pm - 3:30pm.

Hi everyone, the next Litter Blitz will be in the town centre again.

I am struggling to complete the Pre-Blitz survey – having pulled a calf muscle – so at the moment I don’t know the scale of litter in the town – I will try and complete the survey by Friday.

Can you let me know asap if you can support the Litter Blitz so I can plan the routes for the day. email me on [email protected] if you can come along.

We have received today the following Certificate from Keep Britain Tidy’s CEO , Alison Ogden-Newton, recognising the fantastic work we are doing in trying to keep Morpeth litter free.

It is so well deserved – as a group we have doing a fantastic job – with our Adopt a Street volunteers, Individuals adopting a bin (see photo of a bin at the Railway station being used + brief article) and our Monthly Litter Blitzes. We are supported by Cubs, Scouts, Beavers during the year, St Roberts and Morpeth 1st School (adopt an area) plus we have students completing their Duke of Edinburgh awards – Litter Picking in the Community. The people of Morpeth should be proud what we are achieving. It is lovely to see our town to receive national recognition.

Personally I would to add my thanks to you all who are helping to fight the fight against Litter – at times it can be demoralising seeing litter being dropped – but the scale of litter is definitely reducing.

MLG Volunteer – John C : rear path to Northbound platform at Railway station:
John has adopted this bin, the cradle was installed by Northern Rail, but no bag inserted for over 2 years. The blue street bin, positioned at the bottom of the steep slope, was taken away in 2022 after being vandalised – the scale of rubbish was astounding up the rear path! With a combination of the new bag , adoption by John, and the landscaping – we are now seeing very few items being thrown on the ground! It is an example of how we are changing people’s attitude to litter . This photo was taken Monday 3rd June at 11:30am – the bag was ¾ full! Emptied today and bag awaiting pickup at the Blue street bin near Mafeking roundabout. John – thank you very much for adopting this bin.

Dai Richards
Morpeth’s Keep Britain Tidy Ambassador

it was hoped to have a Litter Blitz this Sunday 26th May, but the Bank Holiday has thwarted that idea.

Our next Litter blitz is Sunday 2nd June meet 1:45pm Goosehill car park, the litter blitz will take place between 2-3:30pm around the Town Centre.

If you can come along , can you let me know by emailing me on [email protected].

At last the weather was kind to us, so the postponed 28th April 2024 Litter Blitz took place this Sunday. A small team of 10 people came along.

Numerous REPORT A PROBLEM issues have been raised with NCC NEAT team – their help is now needed to clean-up large pieces of items – including Tyre, numerous boards, Pallet, bricks etc.

At 3:30 pm Sunday the Industrial Estate looked litter free – the amount of litter collected by the small team was astounding:

a. 26 bags of rubbish
b. 3 metal strips
c. 1 Network Rail noticeboard – redundant and needed to be removed
d. 1 blue Bread tray
e. 2 tables from the closed café located at the junction into the Industrial estate
f. 1 bag of sand
g. 1 metal piping
h. 2 pieces of narrow plastic piping
i. Various prices of wood
j. 1 traffic bollard
k. Yellow pipe lagging

The estate was in a really appalling state – unfortunately we couldn’t complete all the sections – especially the centre path down the middle of the estate – this needs another 3 man hours to complete. The Southern section near the entrance to Guidepost road still needs to be done – unfortunately the overall task was just too big for a small team of 10.

Our NEXT LITTER BLITZ – Town Centre 26th May meet 12:45pm – Blitz 1-2:30pm.
Can you let me know if you can make this – the town is again starting to look untidy.

Hi everyone

At the request of a volunteer at last month’s Litter Blitz:

MORPETH LITTER GROUP LITTER BLITZ #3 Sunday 28th April will be targeting Coopies Lane Industrial estate – including the central path down the middle of the estate.

We will be meeting at 12:45pm at the front to NCC Refuse depot in the middle of Coopies Lane Industrial estate. The litter blitz will start at 1pm – ending 2:30pm.

Everyone welcome. If you are thinking about coming can you let me know by emailing me on [email protected].

Hi everyone

I have been asked by the Officer who is coordinating the launch of the Chevington Woodland Planting scheme, where they are aiming to double the size of Chevington Woods. This is an area between Stobswood and Acklington.

They need our help in planting trees, asking if anyone if you could spare a few hours on Tuesday 7th May where we will be planting trees in an area to the north of the site. They would like to plant a mixture of broadleaf species.

Can you let me know, email me [email protected] by this Friday evening if you would like to come along and help. There are no limits on the number of volunteers, more volunteers will mean more trees get planted.

We would be meeting at 11am at Chevington woods Car park, an initial talk and briefing 11am – 11:15am and then planting for 2.5 hours max.

Equipment will be provided for volunteers with gloves / ppe equipment.

All we ask is you come with strong walking boots, expect the ground to be muddy.

Hi everyone

23 people came today for the Litter Blitz – a fantastic turn out on a such lovely spring afternoon, what a difference we have made to the town – it is now ready for Easter.


see photo of the group, photo taken by Richard Nash

28.5 large black bags were filled, 1 very large traffic cone, 1 small traffic cone and 1 grots of a bag that has been left on the ground for years. Our totals have been placed on Keep Britain Tidy’s Great Daily Mail Spring Clean 2024.

We did the usual areas of Morpeth , but this time we also did Whorral Bank and Castle Bank over the walls to Mafeking roundabout.

see photo of the piles of bags dropped off at Coopies Lane.


Can I thank everyone who put time aside to come along – we have a wonderful team of volunteers who really do make a difference. I know the public appreciate what we do, Richard and John received glowing comments from walkers for cleaning up Whorral bank. I will try and get an article in the Morpeth Herald next Thursday.

The next litter blitz is Sunday 28th April , met 12:45pm – Blitz 1-2:30pm – target area could possibly be Coopies Lane and the estates around it, put an entry in your diary.

Hi everyone , our next Litter Blitz is on Sunday 24th March, hitting again Morpeth Town centre.
New ….. we are meeting at the Goosehill car park at 12:45pm, blitz will be 1pm - 2:30pm

Can you let dai know if you are coming along, send him an email [email protected] , he needs this to make sure we have enough routes set up to meet numbers attending.

Hi everyone

22 people turned up and 40+ bags were collected plus a metal frame for a table.

Everyone found the town was in a complete mess, the scale of the litter was so bad – even with 22 people we couldn’t do all what we wanted to achieve – therefore decision this evening is we will go back to the Town Centre in March 2024 – hopefully finish it this time.

GEMS today:
1. I forgot to ask permission from Morrisons store to cutback the hedges by the petrol station, so I rushed down at 10:30 Sunday, the manageress , thanked us profusely for doing it, permission granted and then offered free coffee for all our 22 volunteers that afternoon after the event – that was so generous and very thoughtful
2. We had our youngest volunteer today, 4 year old with his Mum Samantha – he superbly clamoured over walls around the new Leisure centre to access litter none of us oldies could access – he did a fantastic job.
3. Coming back at the end of the Blitz, a nice touch, I found a book (Gift a Book) on the bench in front of the Chantry – it has a lovely story designed for a 4yr old , it was lovely to see the beam on his face
4. Many Litter Pickers received thanks for what they were doing – especially around the yards which was heavily blighted by glass everywhere!
5. 4 new volunteers came along today – it was a lovely day – warm and gentle breeze – ideal for Litter picking.

Again – thank you everyone who came along today, we didn’t complete all routes due to the scale of the problem but we made a massive dent in the scale of detritus – we will clear it all on #2 Litter Blitz on Sunday 24th March – meet 12:45pm in Goosehill Car Park, litter blitz 1pm to 2:30pm

HI everyone

start of 2024 year - our 1st Litter Blitz.

I have been down to the town centre this morning as part of my pre-surveying - it is an appalling state!

Can you help on Sunday to get the litter into black bags.

We are meeting 12:45pm At the Terrace Car Park, that is the one in front of the New Leisure, look for me with an orange Morpeth Litter Group Hi Viz vest.

Litter Blitz starts 1pm to 2:30pm , we will be hitting many areas around Morpeth.

let me know if you can attend, either reply on facebook or email me [email protected].

Can I suggest that you come with walking boots on, some areas may be wet under foot so safer for you with good walking shoes on.

Parking is limited in TERRACE car park due to the popular Leisure Centre – hopefully there will be a space for my astra.

Regards

Dai Richards
Morpeth’s Keep Britain Tidy Ambassador
07850743636

GMDT's invite to their AGM Wednesday 10th January 2024

Sent on behalf of the GMDT Board of Trustees

We will be holding our AGM on Wednesday 10th January in the Corn Exchange, Morpeth Town Hall starting at 7 pm. Prior to this at 6 pm there will be a talk by John Grundy, author and television presenter - "A Splendid Building: Morpeth Town Hall and the people who built it" We hope you will be able to join us.

Please RSVP to [email protected] by 5 pm on Monday 8th January for teas/coffees.

Here are the dates for your diary for our Litter Blitzes:

2024 Planned activity: Litter Blitzes to take place:
Sunday 25th February: 1pm—2:30pm
Sunday 24th March: 1pm—2:30pm
Sunday 28th April: 2pm—3:30pm
Sunday 26th May: 2pm—3:30pm
Sunday 30th June: 2pm—3:30pm
Sunday 29th September: 2pm—3:30pm
Sunday 27th October 1pm—2:30pm
Sunday 24th November: 1pm—2:30pm

If would like to come along - please let our Blitz Coordinator Dai Richards know are asked to be added to be added to his email distribution list. email him on [email protected].

Hi everyone – a quick email to let you know our Litter Blitz is taking place.

Sunday 25th June – Litter Blitz
Having completed a survey of the town centre yesterday, I have decided that tomorrow’s Litter blitz will only need 1 hour effort to complete. The scale of litter is no where at the level we have had experienced before.


For tomorrow’s Litter Blitz we meet 12:45pm at St James Car Park, Litter Blitz will take place between 1 – 2pm.

Let me know if you can make it - email me on [email protected].