Merton Council has put in place a new targeted cleaning team to deal with higher levels of extra litter in the borough’s parks.

With many residents picnicking or enjoying a drink in our parks this summer, there has been an increase in litter such as food containers, bottles and cans in a small number of locations. The council has responded by putting in place a special team which will focus on hot spot areas where bins are in danger of overflowing due to the higher than usual number of people using the park.

Cllr Andrew Judge, Cabinet Member for Environmental Sustainability and Regeneration, said: ‘We want everyone to have a great jubilee bank holiday weekend so we’re putting additional staff into making sure any extra litter in our parks caused by the summer weather is picked up as soon as possible. We have a special hotspot cleaning team working across all of our parks this week and over the entire bank holiday weekend to empty bins.’