Volunteers clean up the A47 Eye Bypass

Mark Fishpool has been taking photos and videos of the Parkway systems and the A47 that passes through Peterborough for many years showing the litter, debris and other filth alongside our road systems.

The A47 Eye Bypass that runs from Eye Green along to the Welland Road roundabout was in a disgusting condition. The grass verges and ditches running alongside the road needed a good clean up.

The raised tarmac aprons at the three different roundabouts at Welland Road, White Post Road and Eye Green were full of plastic car parts, abandoned road signage, weeds, grass, soil and gravel.

Keep left signs at these locations were either missing or damaged commented Mark.

This road is used by thousands of drivers every day and it is not a very good image they first see of Peterborough as they drive though or even into our city.

Years of pressure highlighting the problem to local councillors and Peterborough City Council had got me nowhere .

I mentioned the problem to Harry Machin of the Peterborough Litter Wombles and we decided some volunteer action had to be taken.

We combined forces and our two volunteer groups took on the huge challenge.

We organised five separate litter picks and clean up operations along the whole road system and finally finished our task on New Years Day.

We collected not only general litter thrown from vehicles but old tyres, wheels, metal gas canisters, computer parts, metal objects of all descriptions, abandoned road signage, road cones, fibreglass lorry panels, plastic car parts, old clothing, glass bottles and hundreds of tin cans.

The worst objects that needed clearing away were plastic bottles full of urine thrown from lorries or vans .

We then cleaned the raised tarmac apron areas surrounding the roundabouts.

A huge task in itself as we moved soil, gravel, weeds, grass, small trees, old road signage, plastic car parts and metal objects.

In total volunteers from other areas of Peterborough spent about 100 hours of their time cleaning this section of road.

Amazingly none of us live anywhere near Eye or this road section but we felt it was a job long overdue that needed tackling.

As we now tackle far more ambitious projects around Peterborough we need to invest in far better safety wear, signage and equipment to carry out our volunteer work.

We have great ambitions for 2024 and are pushing forward along the A47 from the Welland Road roundabout towards Bretton and Longthorpe.

We as volunteers have already spent a lot of time cleaning the Paston Parkway.

We also litter pick and clean up other vast residential and commercial areas of Peterborough.

We now need more volunteers if we are to achieve our goal of Cleaning up Peterborough.

Any individual or business that can help in any way with sponsorship can contact Mark or Harry.

[email protected]

hnmachin@gmail,com.