Volunteers from the local community recently joined Havering Council staff, armed with brooms and litter pickers at an event to clean up the Hilldene shopping area in Harold Hill.
The event was held to highlight the need to focus on protecting the environment in the local area surrounding the shops, with the aim to encourage visitors and residents to think about where they put their rubbish and take pride in their local shopping area.
The council wants to encourage more people to get involved with keeping the local communities cleaner and tidier. Around ten volunteers joined Council enforcement officers, ward councillors, community engagement officers and businesses to pick up rubbish.
Armed with litter pickers, brooms and shovels they all played their part in clearing the area of litter and restoring it to a place people can be proud to call their local community. The group was also joined by residents on the day who were passing by and wanted to join in with the cleaning efforts.
Councillor Osman Dervish, Cabinet Member for Environment said: “This is a fantastic example of a local community working together with the Council to keep the area in which they live, work and go to school cleaner and tidier.
“A daily street sweeping operation is undertaken by the Council, but we want to encourage residents to have pride in their surroundings and help us to keep our neighbourhoods cleaner.
“We want to hear from our residents on where they think issues occur consistently and for them and their neighbours to join forces to improve their streets and the local area, potentially organising their own clean-up events, so we can continue to make Havering a cleaner and tidier borough.”
Residents have been urged to inform the council about any consistent environmental issues so that they can continue to investigate and take measure to reduce any problems that occur.
