'I'm a one-man-band litter picker with no help'

A man who dreamed of clearing up his city's litter has said he has finally had to accept he is a "one-man band" after almost no-one offered to help him out.

Mark Fishpool, 69, set up the Pride in Peterborough Community Association Facebook group when he retired in 2023, and it had more than 900 members.

However, he said while people had pledged to help his efforts to beautify parts of the city, only one or two volunteers have turned out each year.

Mr Fishpool said he had no intention of halting his solo efforts, but added his "vision" of garnering support and creating little groups of willing volunteers had fallen, rather like discarded litter, by the wayside.

Mr Fishpool, who sometimes spends up to 10 hours a day picking up rubbish, has admitted that "it is very addictive".

He expected others to share his passion for litter-picking and clearing overgrown public areas.

But he is now resigned to closing the Facebook group, which he said he would do "with a heavy heart".

When he formed the group he said he hoped there would be "people in Peterborough who had jobs but hopefully they could spare a couple of hours at the weekend – or active retired people to come out now and again just to give me a hand".

He likes to clear "neglected areas" and then "enhance them" by cutting grass and planting flowers.

"Over 900 people joined the group but I'd only see one or two volunteers over a period of six months, so I was out every day on my own, making up for the lost time other volunteers couldn't give," Mr Fishpool said.

"I was a one-man band cleaning up Peterborough."

Asked why he had spent so much time and money on tidying up and buying suitable equipment, he said: "I just wanted to pay back for the life I'd had in Peterborough.

"I haven't got millions of pounds but I could give my manpower and it puts a smile back on to people's faces when they see an area looking neat and tidy."

He has renamed his group Mark's Volunteer Community Projects in an attempt to make it clear it is now just him.

"People would see what I'd done and say, 'Well done team', and I'd want to say, 'Hang on, it was just me doing this'.

"I had this vision where I would have a nice little group of regular volunteers.

"I had all these visions of projects we could have tackled, but without the volunteers you just can't... so I'm going to scale down. The local authority can take over."

Earlier this year, Peterborough City Council told the BBC it was "fully committed" to cleaning up litter and fly-tipping, and it encouraged residents to help – either by taking part in organised litter-picks or by reporting incidents.

It thanked volunteers such as Mr Fishpool, but urged them to stay safe and not pick litter from the sides of busy roads.

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