COPELAND Council’s new Pride of Place team is hard at work looking after the borough.

Complementing the council’s existing clean-up service, the Pride of Place operatives – Darren Glover and Malcolm Litt – work daily on verge-cleansing, litter-picking, weeding, litter bin emptying, and tidying up recycling sites.

Last week, they removed a mattress and an old shed from an area on the St Bees to Rottington Road, in addition to plastic sheeting from Swallow Hill, Distington.

The team also collected 118 bags of rubbish, weeds and debris over a five-day period from areas in: Cleator Moor, St Bees, Frizington, Egremont, Rowrah, Whitehaven and Distington.

Mike Starkie, Mayor of Copeland, launched the Copeland Pride of Place campaign in January 2018 to highlight everything that is positive in the borough and to shine a light on those individuals who disrespect our communities through vandalism, fly-tipping, dog fouling and littering.

Mr Starkie said: “Our Pride of Place team are a vital asset to our communities.

“We now have a team that are out on the streets of Copeland cleaning up our towns and villages, day in, day out.

“We created the Pride of Place campaign to help tackle the issues that our residents raise time and time again.

“We all have a role to play in combating fly-tipping, littering, dog-fouling and vandalism.

“Since we launched the campaign, we’ve worked with many schools across the borough to educate our young people, we’ve worked with businesses to fund campaigns to highlight these offences and we’ve been supported by hundreds of volunteers from all across the borough who have played their part in cleaning up our communities.

“It’s always fantastic to see our residents rallying together to help and our local schools getting involved, but I’m conscious that we as a council need to do everything we can to help tackle the issue.

“We now have two full-time team members who are dedicated to verge cleansing, litter picking, weeding, litter bin emptying, and tidying up our recycling sites five days per week. I’m enormously proud of Copeland and am passionate about making it a better place, to live work and visit - and our Pride of Place operative and our whole cleansing team are making a valuable contribution.”