25 volunteers turned up and gave Lancaster Canal a thorough clean up between the Moor Lane bridge and the Ridge Lane bridge this weekend.

Organised by Green Party Councillor Andrew Kay, the clean up came after concerns that the canal has been looking very bad indeed over the past few months, with large amounts of litter on the tow path, grass verges and in the water itself.

The canal clean up was organised by with the assistance of the city council who provided equipment for litter picking and rubbish bags and took them away at the end of the pick.

“I was absolutely delighted with the turn out on Saturday,” says Councillor Kay. “The weather was dreadful and yet we had the biggest turn out ever for a litter pick.

“I want to thank all those who turned out and helped. They were magnificent.”

virtual-lancaster contacted British Waterways North via their Twitter page earlier in the month, after concerns from VL readers about litter on the canal, which were perhaps more evident when the canal was frozen. They told us they are trying to set up more volunteer “picks” for the canal and planned to publish details soon.

“We are always looking for volunteers to get in touch,” they commented. 

• There’s a web page for volunteers working with British Waterways at: www.britishwaterways.co.uk/be-part-of-it/volunteering and their Twitter page is at http://twitter.com/BWvolunteers