A YOUTH group in Chellaston has pulled together to get an area of the city cleaned up.
Four members of Chellaston Youth Club, along with group leader Keith Brampton, collected 22 bags of rubbish from the shopping precinct and nearby wasteland on Holmleigh Way.
Mr Brampton said the club regularly carries out litter-picks in the area. He said: "We have done these litter-picks throughout Chellaston and Shelton Lock. We chose this area because it hasn't yet been adopted by the city council so there's no litter-picking done there. It's not the residents' fault.
"We spent two and a half hours there, which isn't that long, but we made a big difference."
Mr Brampton said members of the local community had been supportive when they saw that young people were doing something to help.
He said: "Members of the youth club absolutely love doing it and when we were doing this litter-pick people were stopping in their cars to say thank-you. The young people live in the community as well and they want it to look nice.
"One lad said to me, on one of our litter-picks, 'why do people drop litter, there's no need for it'.
"We want to give people in the youth club ownership. It's where they live and in ten or 15 years they will be walking round and living here.
"We want them to think that it's theirs and they should look after it."
The Derby Telegraph's Clean Up Derby campaign was launched in November and has helped to get several areas of the city smartened up.
Derby City Council recently put into action a plan to help keep neglected sites in Normanton clean, including the old Grange Hotel site on Ingleby Avenue.
The campaign is backed by groups and individuals including the 80-strong Normanton and Peartree Landlords' Association and all Derby's secondary school headteachers. There is also cross-party support at the city council.
