Devon’s top visitor attractions are currently out on their annual ‘Clean up the County’ campaign, getting Devon spruced up and ready for Easter.
This is the 5th year that the Devon attractions have joined forces and taken matters into their own hands to ‘Clean up the County’ for the incoming Easter visitors. The attractions noticed, some years ago, there was litter and rubbish strewn across the county and particularly on Devon’s roadsides, verges and hedgerows which didn’t give a good impression to its incoming visitors. So, the ‘Clean up the County’ campaign was born. Unfortunately, five years on, this situation hasn’t changed and our beautiful County is still littered with rubbish, so the attractions are still out there, with their black bin liners, litter picking.
John Rous owner of Clovelly and a leading member of the Devon Association of Tourist Attractions said he had a team of five who undertook a litter pick for a mile stretch on the A39 from Clovelly Cross to Hobby Lodge, in ten man hours they filled 23 black bags of rubbish, serving to illustrate well the full extent of Devon’s litter problem. The rubbish collected included numerous car parts, cider bottles, disposable coffee cups and lots of plastic bottles. He said “Our county has great natural beauty, but roadside litter detracts from it. We have been pleased to be part of this joint campaign since year one and to litter pick ourselves annually along this part of the A39. We hope that this highlights the sheer extent of the problem and that people will think twice before littering and spoiling our beautiful landscape.”
The top visitor Attractions have also teamed up with other Devon tourism businesses who also acknowledge there is a serious litter issue and so have joined the campaign. They have been working alongside some of the county’s top holiday parks including Cofton Holidays who have also been doing their own local beach clean. Helen Scott from Cofton Holidays said, “Team Cofton headed out in force to help clean up Dawlish Warren Beach, staff from all departments got involved, we found that it was not only good for the environment but a rewarding team building exercise and are looking forward to arranging the next one.”
In addition to cleaning up the county Devon’s Top Attractions have also been busy preparing a super collection of Easter themed events and egg-stra special activities ready for the school holidays. To see the full programme of events, see their website www.devonstopattractions.co.uk
