Clean Up The Quays

A Green Lib Dem Initiative to Combat Litter Pollution In Salford Quays

Since his election in January of 2024, Councillor and Green Lib Dem Paul Heilbron has been making it his top priority to clean up his ward of Salford Quays, one of Greater Manchester’s fastest developing areas and a centre for business and media. The area is now much cleaner since the launch of the campaign, but the underlying issue has still not been resolved.

Waterways and pavements have been covered in plastic pollution, industrial waste, and glass. One week, they managed to pull out metric tonnes of waste from the river and more worryingly dangerous items such as drug paraphernalia, knives and broken glass which endanger local residents.

There have even been sightings of animals choking or living amongst rubbish. All of these threaten local bird and wildlife populations too and could lead to unnecessary deaths.
The Quays link with the River Irwell which joins the River Mersey.

The initiative itself has been running since 2020, with previous Lib Dem Councillor Alex Warren starting it by going out by himself, from there he expanded the movement, Paul Heilbron and the Salford Quays Lib Dem team have been carrying on the legacy.

Since 2020 the campaign has only been growing month on month, with now up to 26 volunteers joining each session. This month a staggering 85 bags of rubbish were collected – with an average of 50-60 bags per session.

Some volunteers are residents, and some come from Salford Litter Heroes, The Mersey River Trust, United Utilities River Rangers and representatives from Green Liberal Democrats. They are a registered group with the nationwide movement Clean Up UK https://www.cleanupuk.org.uk/

Salford Quay’s clean up the quays has inspired other movements nearby, with Cllr Alan Good of Ancoats, Manchester City Council being another Lib Dem who has taken up a litter pick in his ward every month.

It has also had cross-party influence, namely with Labour representatives who have taken up their own litter picking movements. Whilst it would be unfair to criticise Labour for cleaning up litter, the irony is most unmistakable when we reflect on Labour's lasting and overwhelming majority in Salford and Manchester for over 50 years, with the council entrusted to maintain litter-free streets themselves – not councillors. While these councillors acknowledge the problem is great and community action to clean up the environment is wonderful, their actions fall short where they do not exert sufficient pressure on their fellow Labour representatives to effectively address it.

Despite having revealed repeatedly the shortfalls of Labour led councils of Greater Manchester, it has revealed a more positive aspect, the leading community spirit of the Liberal Democrats, especially when it comes to green issues.