Team effort to clean up Wolverhampton canal
More than 50 volunteers joined forces with a team of Wolverhampton councillors and staff from a local branch of McDonald’s this week to carry out a huge clean-up along a stretch of city canal.
Wednesfield councillors Phil and Mary Bateman and Wolverhampton’s deputy mayor, councillor Greg Brackenridge, were also joined by local West End actor Nigel Garton, who has appeared in Cats and Les Miserables.
Over the course of two days the group filled a large flatbed narrowboat with an assortment of rubbish pulled from the Wyrley and Essington Canal between Bentley Bridge in Wednesfield and Devil’s Elbow Bridge near Ashmore Park.
Councillor Phil Bateman said: “I was absolutely blown away when I arrived and saw that more than 50 volunteers had turned up to join Mary, Greg and myself in the litter pick.
“I made arrangements with the Canal and River Trust a few weeks ago to pick litter from the canal in the run up to the Wednesfield Canal Festival next month.
“We were joined by even more people along the way and ended up with an incredible army of young and old people and families with children. Even the Deputy mayor of Wolverhampton, councillor Greg Brackenridge, joined in before he had to go and officiate at the opening of the Wodenstock festival later that day.
“I would like to extend my thanks to everyone who took part, as that stretch of canal is one of our latest Local Nature Reserves and is a beautiful area. In the last few weeks the CRT have cleared a lot of rubbish and other items from it.
“They started in the city centre and cleared all the way through Heath Town and up to Bentley Bridge near New Cross Hospital. We extended that run with the leg we undertook over the weekend,” he added.
The group was joined by twelve volunteers from the Stafford Road branch of McDonald’s, who spent four hours pulling shopping trolleys, mattresses, scrap metal, steel poles, bottles and plastic bags full of rubbish from the canal.
Councillor Bateman said that the team even cleaned up drug paraphernalia and needles which went into a Sharps box for disposal later.
“Ultimately this clean-up was organised to preserve the wildflowers and the wildlife on what is one of the United Kingdom’s latest Local Nature Reserves. I would also like to thank CRT staff members Chris Holdsworth and Barry Ketley who made it possible for us to do this,” he added.
