Keep Leeds Tidy: Bagloads of community pride in New Wortley

The group, from New Wortley, recently volunteered to take part in a community clean-up in the west Leeds suburb.

Teams of locals took to the estate with their litter pickers, hitting as many streets as they could to bring a smile to their neighbours.

Community campaigner Michelle McGill said it had been a successful day, a real team effort between proud locals and the authorities. #

“All of the avenues of the estate were litter-picked,” she said.

“We had a lot of children stopping and saying ‘can we get involved’ and everyone got stuck in.

“And the council’s environment team took all the rubbish away.”

Amongst those taking part was local Labour councillor James McKenna, who said the clean-up was part of a raft of successful recent efforts by the community to “renew itself”.

He said that with Leeds City Council increasingly being forced to “cut back all over the place” due to Government funding reductions, and resources having to be targeted towards the city’s vulnerable, it was even more important - and gratifying - to see communities pulling together.

The Yorkshire Evening Post has recently launched its Keep Leeds Tidy campaign to encourage Loiners to show some civic pride. We are urging people to reclaim their neighbourhoods, and rid them of the scourges of litter, flytipping, dog fouling and graffiti vandalism.