Yesterday was a good litter pick day so I thought I’d share with you what we do altogether on a typical litter pick/volunteer day.

Sue, I and Patrick arrived spot on time at 10:30 but there were already at least ten people waiting to get stuck in. We unloaded all the equipment and everybody chose their litter pickup sticks, gloves and bags.

On the way up we saw that the fly tip that had been on the lower part of the common for about five weeks and which we had previously gathered into an orderly pile, was still there and indeed had been scattered widely around the area. So Patrick volunteered to go and bag up what he could and put it in an orderly pile to make it easier for the council to collect.

Richie said he was going to the top of the mountain for his pick up route – so I asked Bill to go with him because I knew that the pile of wreaths that a party of mourners had taken up there a month ago had rotted away leaving the ribbons, plastic and wire framework scattered around the trig point – there was so much of it that it would take two to carry it all down.

BACKSTORY: Last month (June 30th) when we were doing our litter pick several cars arrived and all the occupants (about 20 people all told, adults and children), set off up the mountain carrying several wreaths, balloons, gas canister and picnics. They were obviously on their way to scatter ashes. Only when they came back down an hour or so later did we speak to any of them and the one lady who we think was the deceased’s wife said that they would return in a week or so to retrieve them. A couple of days later I went up and took photos of the wreaths propped up around the trig point (02/07/19) couldn’t see where they had scattered the ashes. Three weeks later someone posted on Facebook photos of the remnants of the wreaths which were scattered all over the place, very few flowers remained, only the plastic and wire frameworks.

ON WITH THE WORK: Stalwart member Alun and his daughter Lynne set about bracken bashing in the triangle to give the trees a bit more room to grow. Meanwhile everyone else spread out around the car park and common picking up the usual fast food litter and plastic bottles, several small fly tips of household rubbish and some evidence of substance abuse in the area such as mini gas canisters and small plastic bags.

I then set about repairing the steps up out of the car park – I had repaired them last month but again the one new tread I had installed had been kicked away – so this time I used new wood and longer screws.

With the steps repaired I walked off with the dogs, up the ORPA towards the ridgeway where I had spotted the remains of a picnic/barbecue a few days previously. That turned out to be a full bag of plastic bottles, beer cans and a few cardboard boxes (all found around the skeleton of a sheep – curious).

I then continued back towards the Tump to meet up with Bill to inspect the damage to the stock gate. A week ago I met a couple of chaps from Llanarth Estates who were rounding up and removing cattle and sheep from the top of the SAM – the livestock had got in because the fence either side of the stock gate had been cut down (this was the second time in 3 weeks). The chaps had told me they would repair the fence if they had time but obviously they hadn’t – so I roughly pulled the fence back into place and tied it off as best I could with the loose ends of the barbed wire.

The fence was also cut at the kissing gate so again we roughly pulled the fence back into place – at least these quick repairs would be a deterrent to the livestock being able to break through. We or the farmer will be back to do a more thorough job in the next couple of weeks.

We also met Simeon at the gate who had arrived late for the litter pick but he had still done a sweep around the top and collected a bag of rubbish on his route.

Back at the car park Sue and the others had witnessed a group of four off-road motorbikes go through the gate and proceeded up the ORPA to the ridgeway – only a couple of these had number plates but unfortunately they could not be read.

Also a white Ford transit van arrived at the car park and a couple of lads got out their off-road motorbikes. Some of our group pointed out to them that it was illegal to use their bikes up onto the ridgeway and they responded with “…the police told us we could ride up here” – a very unlikely excuse. Neither of their bikes had number plates.

Both of the bikes rode off up the ORPA as I approached the car park from my work at the top – they had obviously left their van behind – I could hear the bikes racing around on the ridgeway above (note: if they had stuck to the correct route of the ORPA you would not be able to hear the bikes).

I phoned Gwent police on 101 to report the incident (I have the Log No) and informed them of the incident and that the van was still there. We were there for about another hour and the bikes did not return in that time – nor did any police arrive.

Everyone gathered around for a cuppa and biscuits and the team photograph. We had collected about eight bags of rubbish from around the car park and common, plus miscellaneous stuff, including a toy electric guitar, that wouldn’t fit into bags. The fly-tip mentioned before had been collected into another eight bags and what couldn’t be bagged up was arranged into one tidy place – the team had also found the remains of a complete wooden shed and put that so it could be easily collected by the council.

There were thirteen of us (plus five dogs) to do all this today and we left the place a far tidier place to make the area far more welcoming to visitors.

I reported the rubbish collection to the appropriate department of CCBC via email the following morning – so we have to hope they do their bit in collecting it all before any of it gets redistributed around the area.

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