Keeping Prudhoe Tidy

Prudhoe Groundforce volunteers can often be quoted as saying they look forward to a time when Prudhoe is 'free from litter'.  Every Wednesday morning they go out to the problem areas in the town and pick up what others have carelessly thrown away, despite the growing number of litter bins in the town and the ability to simply 'take litter home'.

Litter is not the only problem and we recently publicised that the Town Council were trialling a cigarette disposal unit on one of the litter bins on Front Street.  Litter bins can be purchased with cigarette disposal on the side, or a stub plate on top but in order to avoid this expense, whilst attempting to tackle the problem, we contacted local metalworkers Chris and Gary Fenwick of CJL Fenwick to come up with a potential solution.

We also considered the issue of fires in litter bins as this had been a problem in the summer of 2018 when a couple of Front Street bins caught light from poorly discarded cigarettes.  With support from Northumberland Fire and Rescue and simple but effective designs from CJL Fenwick, we think we have a solution and now all litter bins on Front Street have a substantial stub plate which allows smokers to properly 'put out' and appropriately dispose of cigarettes in the bin.

Used cigarettes are litter and fines have been issued on Front Street to those not discarding in the bin.  We hope that by having the cigarette disposal units on the litter bins, smokers will be encouraged to use them rather than the pavement which will improve the appearance of the town, as well as preventing accidental fires when the bin is used but cigarettes are not propoerly extinguished.

The Town Council is pleased that we were able to use money from Northumberland County Council High Streets Community Clean-Up Grant Funding for this project, as well as to purchase litter-picking equipment/storage and movable signs encouraging residents and visitors to 'Keep Prudhoe Tidy'.