BANK holiday weekend saw the start of Keep Britain Tidy's 'Great British Spring Clean' 2021 and the Million Mile Mission.

The aim of the Million Mile Mission is to help clear a million miles of litter from our streets, parks, and alley ways by spending between one hour and 24 hours cleaning our shared spaces, between 28th May and 13th June.

Many of you will not be surprised to learn that nationally, locating, managing, and removing waste left by fly tipping costs us about £600 million a year. That's without factoring in the personal impact that fly tipping has on neighbourhoods and streets here in Crewe.

That is why I felt it was the perfect time to launch the Crewe Alley Angels project partnering with Crewe Clean Team and Crewe Residents Against Fly Tipping with support from Radius Payment Solutions.

The aim of project is to make our 'backsies' in Crewe a more inviting and safe space to spend time with our neighbours and for our children to play in.

I was inspired to set up a project after seeing the amazing alleyways in similar projects across the country like the one run by Anfield Alley Angels. We are really lucky to be getting their support for our project in Crewe.

Last weekend, I was joined by more than 10 volunteers who pulled on their gloves, grabbed their litter pickers and came together to collect bags of rubbish, remove weeds and even put their hands down drains all to improve the Westminster/Walthall Street alley for them and their neighbours' enjoyment.

The famous saying really is true, many hands make light work and within four hours we were able to transform a tired and overgrown alley way into a clean space. We were helped by local councillors demonstrating the widespread community support there is for what we are trying to achieve.

Once we have finished the clean up we will begin working with residents to go that step further with flower baskets, wall art and other features that are going to reclaim the area as somewhere you can relax and enjoy time outdoors.

The timing of the project is helped by the wider project being undertaken by Cheshire East Council as it begins cleaning up and spraying the weeds in some of the alleyways with the greatest problems with fly tipping.

More than 2,500 letters have been delivered to homes to remind people the rules about waste disposal and Cheshire East is committed to delivering on enforcing the rules and prosecuting fly tippers. Hopefully if our pilot is successful we will end up with a really good carrot and stick approach!

We have already had lots of requests for the project to come to other alleyways. We will keep a list of all the people that want to support their own project and we are keen to grow but we want to make a really great success of this first alleyway.

But if you are green-fingered, community-minded, and would like to take it forward and contribute an hour with us you'd be welcome!

We had residents from the West End of Crewe helping us out last weekend. If you want to get involved email me [email protected]