Children playing surrounded by rubbish

“They shouldn’t have playgrounds in Easton it’s too dangerous for the kids,” says a woman walking her dog past a playground on Bannerman Road.

She may have a point. Lying next to a bench is a used condom and drug paraphernalia. In the grass piles and piles of dog muck. By the swings a dumped tyre. Piled high in the bushes, cans and plastic bottles.

Opposite the playground, an alleyway full of smashed glass, a headless pigeon in a pool of blood and dumped bags of rubbish spilling out.

“It’s worse in the summer,” says the dog walker, who didn’t want to give her name. “The druggies sit on the benches and just chuck everything, even though there is a bin just there.”

She gesticulates and walks away, putting her dog waste bag in the bin. Judging by the amount around she’s one of the few that do.

It’s no wonder children prefer a screen to a playground.

One man who is leading the crusade to get inner-city Bristol cleaned up is Steve Woods from Tidy BS5.

He has seen the area deteriorate over the years as families moved out replaced by rising numbers of absentee landlords and a large transient population.

“There is a loss of a community and a sense of looking after the area,” he says. “People are a lot more selfish today.”

Even when the community comes together, the overwhelming tide of rubbish soon returns.

“Tidy BS5 and Up Our Street cleaned up Urban Park in Barton Hill last summer,” says Steve. “We picked up 40 bags of rubbish and within a couple of weeks it was the same again.”

For its part, the council said it visits the Bannerman Road playground twice a week during spring, summer and autumn and once a week during the winter months to empty the bins and clear any litter.

In a statement, a council spokesperson added that they also respond to reports of litter and fly-tipping, have specialist sex and drug litter units, and have emergency call-out provision for urgent issues.

Judging by the amount of detritus, it is still not enough. But just how much can the council do?

The council says its ambition is to educate people and back-up with enforcement, but meanwhile the community and the children meant to be playing in the playgrounds still have to live with the litter.

The council say any reports of additional litter and rubbish removal, with additional assistance from Bristol Waste Company to deal with sex and drug litter and fly tipping

Heather Beach, deputy head of Bannerman Road Community Academy just a stone’s throw from the playground, says that having high quality outside space is crucial in inner-city areas.

“For a lot of our families, their accommodation doesn’t provide the outdoor opportunities which children need. Therefore the local green spaces and parks are even more important to our community.

“As Chelsea Park playground is currently closed, there is a moral obligation to ensure that all the other parks are fit for purpose. This means providing a safe and enriching environment for both parents and children alike.”

While Woods acknowledges that the city council is fighting a losing battle with depleted budgets, he also says the inner-city is ignored.

“In our part of the city you can scream your head off for year after year. In Clifton they raise an eyebrow and the council are all over them like a rash.”

Bristol City Council spends approximately £6m on street cleaning every year, including fly-tip and flyposting removal, sex and drug litter clearance and graffiti cleaning but it is still not enough.

Faced with an ever increasing squeeze on council budgets, could a new government initiative to crackdown on litter louts make a difference?

Fines for littering are set to double to £150 and Marcus Jones, the government’s communities minister, said he wanted the public to challenge people dropping rubbish in public places.

Earlier this year he told The Telegraph that littering is “thoughtless, selfish and ruins shared spaces for everyone”.

He added: “Not only that, litter clearance and disposal costs hundreds of millions of pounds for councils every year – money that could be going on vital services.” 

In response, the Department for Communities and Local Government is publishing a new national litter strategy to “create a lasting clutter-free legacy for England”.

A national spring clean has been announced for March to encourage up to one million people to clean up their communities, ahead of the Queen’s birthday on April 21 and her official birthday in June.

However, with only four ‘pick up for the Queen’ event registered in Bristol so far, perhaps in the long-term the impetus to clean-up will come from within the changing community of Easton itself.

As house prices rise in BS5, demographics change and families move back into the area “maybe the gentrification of Easton will have an effect on the problem,” says Woods.

Until then problems with litter and parks across Bristol can be reported via the parks enquiry line via email to bristolparks@bristol.gov.uk or www.bristol.gov.uk/complaints-and-feedback/bins-recycling-and-litter-complaints-and-feedback

Read more: Easton residents mock fly-tipping ‘artwork’