A Southampton park had a much needed clean-up at the weekend.

Daisy Dip, is an attractive park in Swaythling but it has attracted littering and fly tipping in recent years.

City Councillor Robert Painton has for the last three years organised litter picks for the park.

After the clean-up Cllr Painton said: “It was brilliant. It was the best attended Daisy Dip Clean-Up yet. Children from Cantell School were there and the head teacher Harry Kutty plus Caroline Noakes the MP and several residents too. We had enough people to do the whole park in a two hour stint. We collected 16 bags of rubbish as well as two quilts, 1 suitcase, a bean bag and a push chair”

He added: “We had about 30 helpers and managed to get everything except some larger fly-tipped items, which were a wardrobe and a mattress and I hope the council will pick these up this week,”

The councillor said that he originally used to organise volunteer clean-ups in the Mansbridge area but on day someone told him that Daisy Dip needed a similar effort and on investigating saw the park had a lot of fly-tipping.

Cllr Painton said: “The area has seen a slight improvement but there was a vast amount of rubbish. It’s depressing that the bins had not been emptied for a while and were all overflowing. Normally bins are empty on a weekly basis, so I’ll be making some phone calls to sort this out.”

The councillor made a plea for people to respect the environment and said: “Please be responsible and use the bins provided. If you have excess rubbish use appropriate council services. Please don’t fly-tip or drop litter on to public spaces.”

On his Facebook the Councillor wrote: “Well done to everyone, a great job done, to be proud of”