Leader praises clean up volunteers

The Leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council has praised volunteers for their efforts to make the borough a cleaner and greener place and pledged to continue to support them.

Councillor Mohammed Khan spoke as more and more red bags of litter collected by people are seen across the Blackburn with Darwen showing the increase in volunteers cleaning up their neighbourhood.

The red bags are then collected by the Council and got rid of.

Councillor Khan renewed his pledge following the success of the Keep Blackburn Tidy and Keep Darwen Tidy groups, which both have over 1000 members on Facebook.  Since the groups started they’ve collected over 4500 red bags of litter.

He said he hoped their success and the number of red bags being collected would inspire others.

Councillor Khan said:

It’s no secret that the Council and the borough has faced tough times and we continue to face tough times.  But it’s not all doom and gloom because we have some great people who go the extra mile to make Blackburn with Darwen a better place.

It’s a great shame we need people to pick up litter. Frankly, people shouldn’t drop it. It’s selfish and grossly irresponsible.

But I am very thankful most people have great community spirit and that hundreds of people every day are doing amazing things that make a difference.

The work the people of this borough is doing is attracting from other parts of the country, amazed about our community’s strength of pride.

Our job as a Council is to continue to support them and help them flourish. It would be great to see more people come forward and hear the call and I hope the work the Keep Tidy groups do will serve as an inspiration. Together we can make Blackburn with Darwen a great place to live, work and visit.

There are plenty of ways to get involved in cleaning up your area and helping out

Free litter picking kits are available for residents of the borough by signing up at: https://lancsvp.org.uk/opportunities/kit/  Residents call also contact their local councillors for help in cleaning up an area. You can find out who your local councillor is here: https://democracy.blackburn.gov.uk/mgFindMember.aspx

Even if you don’t want to take part in litter picking, you can support efforts to make the borough a tidier place by reporting littering and fly-tipping through the council’s Your Call app. More details here:   https://www.blackburn.gov.uk/Pages/App-mobile-Council-services.aspx