AN an army of litter-pickers will descend on one of the town's worst-hit areas on Wednesday.

Volunteers are being urged to get involved in a clean-up operation being organised by The Harbour Project. It starts at St Luke's Church at 11am and everybody is welcome to go along and help.

Sophie Boyce, business manager at the charity which supports refugees and asylum seekers in the town, said: “Some of our visitors talk about the litter as it’s quite messy here.

“We want to keep the place tidier and when people see the litter pick we’re hoping that they’ll think twice about littering.

“Lots of stuff seems to get dropped and it’s not great. We have to go out and tidy it.

“It’ll be nicer for everybody if we keep it tidy.”

On an average day the charity sees around 60 to 70 people come through its doors at the church in Broad Street. Sophie isn’t expecting as many as that to help, but is hopeful of a strong turnout.

She added: “I’m hoping for quite a few to come along. We’ve only got enough equipment for 20 people but I’m sure if more than that turn up then we can spread it around.

“The equipment came from South Swindon Parish Council. They’ve given us the pickers, gloves and some bin bags.

“We’ll do a few runs, probably half-an-hour each time.”

Sophie was spurred on by the Adver's Let’s Make Litter History campaign, which kicked off last month.

“The Advertiser started the campaign and we’ve wanted to do something like this for a while so we thought why not?

“I think it’s a great idea. It’s something a lot of people need to get behind.

“There are not many bins about and people are a bit lazy, they like to do things quick. No bins means more litter.”

The Adver’s campaign aims to fight back against the sorry sight of litter that plagues so much of our town.

We’re calling on loyal readers to join or set up litter picks around Swindon and commit to always putting their rubbish into a bin.

With your help, we can clean up the town and help make it a more attractive place to live and visit.

The first challenge is identifying the worst areas. The second will be attempting to organise litter picks targeting those areas. We’ll be there to lend a hand and keep track of how much rubbish we’ve helped to remove.

If you’d like to get involved or can identify badly-affected areas, please email pete.gavan@newsquest.co.uk with Let’s Make Litter History in the subject line.