Civic Day clean up sets a shining example.

Civic Day is a national celebration of civic pride – a day on which residents and businesses can demonstrate their care for the place where they live and work by participating in a variety of community tasks ranging from gardening to street cleaning.

To mark this day, on Saturday 17 th June, 30 volunteers took to Cheltenham town centre to deep clean The Strand area of High Street, Cambray Place and Grosvenor Terrace.
Volunteers from Cheltenham Civic Society joined staff from Cheltenham BID, local businesses Harrison Clark Rickerbys, The Queens Hotel and John Lewis and Partners who gave up their Saturday morning. The group included Cheltenham’s MP Alex Chalk and Mayor of Cheltenham, Matt Babbage.

Andrew Booton, Chair of Cheltenham Civic Society said: “This part of town has a lot of street furniture and isn’t always seen as a priority when it comes to attention from the local authorities.

The simple act of cleaning and weeding has made a significant difference and should set an example to how we treat the public spaces.”

Groups of volunteers could be seen scraping off stickers and gum from lampposts, benches and bins whilst others removed graffiti from walls and utility cabinets. More weeded, swept and picked litter and removed fly posting.

Heath Gunter, chief executive of Cheltenham BID said: “Dozens of bags of rubbish and weeds were collected by Ubico after the volunteers had finished, leaving this part of the town looking more attractive than it did at the start of the day.

“It was amazing to see our businesses volunteering their time to improve our town centre and the feedback we’ve received from them has been overwhelmingly positive. “
Steve Murray, Partner at Harrison Clark Rickerbys said: “It was a very satisfying morning, we were pleased to be involved. It was great to see the number of supporters prepared to get their hands dirty and to work alongside other local businesses to improve an area of town members of our Cheltenham office use on a daily basis. The team was definitely proud of what was achieved on the day.”

This joint venture between Cheltenham Civic Society and Cheltenham BID shows how working together can have a positive impact, not just on the surrounding area but also on the people who participate in these events. The two organisations are hoping to run a similar event later in the year in a different part of the town centre.

Cheltenham BID’s ‘Tidy Up Cheltenham’ campaign has so far been focused on this area of the town centre with bird netting on Grosvenor Terrace replaced, graffiti removed and painted over and attractive vinyl installed in empty premises.

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