HARLOW Council has defended its decision to not take part in Great British Clean Up.

A spokesperson said: “Sadly it is not possible this year due to the restrictions in place and the number of residents and the number of groups who wanted to take part in Harlow. Small groups can still sign up to take part with Keep Britain Tidy and will pick up any bags of litter collected. We hope to take part and organise another clean up event in the future.

We sent the following message out to groups yesterday:

“Earlier this year we were so grateful for all the commitment that was made to clean up spaces in every part of Harlow by making time to litter pick. We had 85 groups confirmed consisting of up to 3,390 people in groups of 3 – 500.  Unfortunately this had to be cancelled due to the Country being put into quarantine because of Covid-19.

We were hoping that we would be able to reschedule all the picks for later in the year but due to current restrictions still in place this is proving difficult. The official Great British Clean-up is still scheduled from 11 – 27 September with many changes imposed. However, due to many factors the Council has taken the decision not to  participate in this year’s clean up.

Some of the factors that have led to this decision include group sizes/variations – officially only groups of 6 are allowed and they have to be family bubbles, sanitisation of equipment – this will prove difficult with the amount of groups taking part to turn this around and we wouldn’t want to put anybody at risk, the workload on services – administration of the event, collection/return of equipment and collection of waste and finally the restrictions of placed on social gatherings which are constantly under review – we would not be able to hold the thank you presentation either.

We are disappointed that we have had to make this decision and would like to say thank you to each of you for being patient whilst this decision was made. Hopefully we will be in a position to carry out the Great British Spring Clean next Spring and that you will all be able to participate.

If in the meantime you would still like to take part in this year’s official clean up you can either arrange your own litter pick in groups of 6 (unfortunately we cannot lend out equipment) or you can pledge your time to pick litter in the future. The information for this can be found here:https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/get-involved/support-our-campaigns/great-british-spring-clean. In order to help a little with this we can arrange to have the litter collected from a convenient point after your pick. If you would like to contact us on 01279 446201<ctxtel:01279%20446201> [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> when your pick is confirmed and these arrangements can be made.

Yet again I thank you for your interest and patience and I hope to be in touch with you in the new year.