Spring Clean 2023

This year the ARA Annual Spring Clean event was very successful, and despite the dismal weather forecast, many volunteers turned out giving one hour of their time. They were rewarded with miraculously bright dry mild conditions. For once I was pleased that the Met Office got it wrong.

We collected in excess of 88 bags of rubbish which was more than last year, and included such things as a bicycle rack, and sofa cushions! The mind boggles as to why these articles are just left on our roads, but also demonstrates why the Annual Spring Clean is necessary.

The ARA Committee and I would like very much to thank all our volunteers, for donating one hour of their time, to such a worthwhile cause, including, our local Councillors, the Ashtead Rotary club members who joined our teams, the 1st Ashtead Scouts and Barnet Wood Lane Pre School for offering to clean road signs and pick up litter at the local shops.

A special mention of thanks also to St Giles School and Barnet Wood Lane School for allowing us to put up banners advertising the Spring Clean, plus Ashtead Railway Station and Marks & Spencer for putting our A frame posters in prime position advertising the Spring Clean, Pam Ventham Smith for making sure our posters were put up on the local notice boards, and last but not least The Brewery Inn public house for supplying free tea and coffee to all our volunteers after the event. Finally a thank you to Clive and Di Stirling for picking up the bags of litter and bringing them to the APMH Car Park for MVDC to collect. Thanks also to Industraheat for allowing us to leave collected bags by their container unit in the station car park.  Sadly, MVDC let us and them down and failed to collect these bags on the Monday after the Spring Clean. Apologies to Industraheat and we will be chasing MVDC to collect these bags asap.

Advertising and support really does play an important role in any form of event organising, so the Ashtead Residents’ Association was extremely pleased and would like to thank Titan Eco for their  a very generous donation towards this and future ARA litter-pick events.

Unfortunately, the 1st Ashtead Brownies who were very supportive last year had to cancel at the last minute, but we look forward to having them with us next year.