More than 50 people turned up on Saturday morning to help clear rubbish from Speckled Wood in Ore as part of Keep Britain Tidy’s Great Spring Clean.

Cubs and scouts from the 4^th Hastings group based in Ore joined their parents and more than 40 local residents along with their children and dogs. Between them they filled a skip – generously loaned by French’s Skips – with everything from rusty bikes, fast food packaging, bottles, cans, bags of clothes and much more all of which had been dumped in this local ‘green lung’.

‘How can people behave like this?’ was a common remark as the rubbish mounted up along with, ‘Why can’t they just put their rubbish in bins or take it to the tip like the rest of us?’

Jim Breeds, Ore Community Land Trust (OCLT) Chair, said: “I was delighted to see so many people turn out to volunteer for this Great British Spring Clean in Speckled Wood.

“This was a remarkable demonstration of the community coming together to tackle a terrible litter problem in our wood.

“It was particularly pleasing to see so many young people taking part, including a large and enthusiastic contingent from the Ore 4th Hastings Scouts and Cubs. Everybody’s hard work today has now made the wood a more pleasant place to visit and I look forward to many more opportunities for the Trust and the local community to work together on turning Speckled Wood into an even more fantastic environment than it already is.”

OCLT successfully campaigned for the area to be removed from the Hastings Borough Council’s housing allocation sites and is seeking to buy those areas still in private ownership so it can be preserved as community green space in perpetuity. OCLT is also seeking additional volunteers to help in the maintenance and management of the Wood.