People who regularly use the Odd Down playing fields to exercise or walk their dogs are working with the Council on a new campaign to keep the area clean.
The Odd Down Cleaner Communities Group was set up earlier this year to improve the local environment, specifically Odd Down playing fields.
The group’s campaign aims to encourage people who use the fields to clean up litter and fouling.
The group put forward a range of ideas to help tackle litter and fouling problems. This included a request to Bath & North East Somerset Council for more bins as well as new notices to replace the old, defaced ones.
Bath & North East Somerset Council has now put these in place, using funding from the Ward Councillors’ Initiative scheme from Cllr Nigel Roberts and Cllr Steve Hedges.
Cllrs Roberts and Hedges said they were delighted to use this funding to help the community group tackle the issue of litter and fouling before planned improvements to the Odd Down playing fields are carried out later this year.
Cllr David Dixon, Bath & North East Somerset Council’s Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods (LibDem, Oldfield) said: “Local people are reporting a significant improvement since the new bins were put in place in March. New signs were put up during the first weekend in June and again we hope that these will help.”
Bath & North is Somerset Council will consider whether they will introduce the new Public Spaces Protection Orders later this year.
These will enable the Council to control general issues that arise in such as people not picking up dog mess or allowing dogs to enter children’s play areas. Breach of a Public Space Protection Order will be an offence for which people can be fined.
Anyone interested in finding out more about setting up a Cleaner Communities group is invited to contact the Council’s Environmental Services team on 01225 394041.
The Ward Councillors’ Initiative scheme provided £3,000 of funding to each Ward Councillor for 2012-13 and 2013-14 to empower them to respond quickly to local community needs where a small amount of financial support can make a big difference.
The present scheme expired on 28th February 2014.
