Meet the person obsessive about cleansing up our roadside verges
The slip highway of a motorway — with rushing automobiles and lorries hurtling previous — will not be precisely the perfect spot to take a stroll.
It is not only the site visitors. It can be filthy. Nestled within the verges of this quick stretch off the southbound A3 the place it reaches the M25 at junction 10 are numerous empty fast-food wrappers, disposable vapes, espresso cups and a nappy, in addition to empty glass and plastic bottles. Some are crammed with amber-coloured liquid…
John Read is blasé about it, nicely virtually. As founding father of Clean Up Britain (CLUB), he’s accustomed to seeing revolting litter on Britain’s motorways.
Last month, on this spot in Surrey, John counted 35 vapes, 27 Red Bull cans, 22 Costa Coffee cups, 5 dirty nappies and — inexplicably — a Barbie doll among the many gadgets discovered on the 70-metre verge.
There have been additionally 15 Stella Artois cans, 13 Carlsberg cans, 24 Fanta and Coca-Cola cans, 16 Starbucks cups, 39 sandwich packets and two empty cans of pet food, in addition to dozens of nitrous oxide canisters, seven cigarette packets and much too many cigarette butts to itemise.
No surprise it has been dubbed one of many dirtiest roads in Britain — though removed from being the exception, that is now the truth throughout the nation.
Iram Ramzan assembly John Read (proper), founding father of the Clean Up Britain group, who has taken National Highways to courtroom for failing to ‘guarantee its land is stored away from litter’
As founding father of Clean Up Britain, John is used to seeing revolting litter on Britain’s motorways
The disgusting particles of the M25 slip highway was the prime exhibit in a listening to at Guildford Magistrates’ Court scheduled for final Wednesday, wherein National Highways was accused of failing to maintain its roadside land freed from litter. The physique is legally obliged to ‘guarantee its land is stored clear’ of it.
It was believed to be the primary time anybody — on this case John Read — had tried to take a authorities physique to courtroom below litter-abatement legal guidelines.
The case was adjourned, but when National Highways is discovered responsible at a later date, it could possibly be issued with a litter abatement order requiring it to clear the garbage, in any other case National Highways will likely be fined what appears to me a really minimal quantity of as much as £2,500.
The key level, although, is that John feels the physique have to be publicly admonished and made to simply accept accountability.
‘Don’t suppose this highway is phenomenal,’ he says. ‘It’s not. I’ve bought 1000’s of images from throughout the nation like this. They’re [National Highways] getting £5.4 billion a 12 months from the Department for Transport. They’ve been given a authorized mandate to maintain the land away from litter. This is a systemic violation of their authorized duties. And they have been getting away with it for years.’
National Highways, in the meantime, insists that it isn’t an enforcement physique.
However, Sir Mike Penning — Tory MP for Hemel Hempstead and a former transport minister who helps Read’s marketing campaign — makes a sound retort to that excuse: ‘They’re fairly able to implementing if somebody is driving above the velocity restrict,’ he says.
‘The cameras are there, and there are sufficient of their officers on the highways, day in day trip. The Government ought to rein them again in. It’s embarrassing that individuals like John are taking them to courtroom. But it is the one manner.’
Iram Ramzan (pictured) met Mr Read, who argues National Highways have to be publicly admonished and made to simply accept accountability for not retaining Britain’s roadsides clear
On sooner or later final month, 35 disposable vapes, 27 Red Bull cans, 22 Costa Coffee cups 5 dirty nappies and a Barbie doll have been simply among the gadgets discovered by a Surrey highway
John Read is a person on a mission and he would not quit simply. In reality, that is his twelfth try and get the quango into courtroom. He claims the company has beforehand cleaned up roadsides on the final minute to keep away from a courtroom look.
It was Laurence Wells, a Clean Up Britain volunteer and councillor in close by Cobham, who first seen final June simply how dangerous this specific M25 slip highway was.
Clean Up Britain emailed the proof to National Highways in July, which was acknowledged by them by e-mail. After no additional response, extra images have been despatched to the company in August to indicate the litter was nonetheless there.
In October, when the particles nonetheless hadn’t been cleared, Clean Up Britain — based by Read in 2010 — emailed the company with a discover of intention to deliver a litter abatement order software. On October 29, Clean Up Britain utilized to Guildford Magistrates’ Court for the order, which was authorised on December 13.
Remarkably, the slip highway continues to be stuffed with litter when the Daily Mail visits with John and Laurence.
‘If they have been sensible, they might have come right here on the day of their courtroom listening to and introduced it as much as commonplace,’ says John. ‘They’re fortunate the case has been adjourned.’
Road circumstances are categorised from A to D in litter phrases, with A being pristine and D, nicely, that slip highway. National Highways itself estimates that 47 per cent of its roads are class C or D.
It seems the company’s personal workmen have even made their contributions. We spot deserted metallic frames, used for highway indicators, and sandbags, used for weighing them down. Underneath is a vivid yellow signal that reads, satirically, ‘Take your litter house’.
John will not be amused. ‘How can they clear up the garbage once they’re littering themselves!’
John Read (proper) is pictured with Laurence Wells, one other avid litter picker
Police have stopped Mr Read on 4 events when he is selecting litter on a verge, he says
Between April 2020 and March 2022, an astounding 45,000 baggage of garbage, weighing 451 tonnes, have been collected alongside the 230-mile size of the M6 motorway, in accordance with info disclosed by National Highways below Freedom of Information legal guidelines.
John, from Warwick, grew to become a campaigner after a 400-mile automotive journey in 2010 from Edinburgh to London, on which he noticed barely any stretches of highway with out garbage. He mentioned: ‘I had steam popping out of my ears and I mentioned issues that you simply in all probability cannot print in your paper.
‘My spouse mentioned, ‘Instead of whingeing and swearing, why do not you do one thing about it?’ By the time we bought to London, I’d made the choice. Sometimes I want I hadn’t. My spouse undoubtedly regrets saying it to me.
‘She says, “When I married you, you had a nice job, you didn’t talk about litter all the time and you didn’t smell!” Well, you’d scent if you happen to’re surrounded by these things all day,’ he laughs.
Police have stopped Read on 4 events when he is on a litter-strewn verge, however he has by no means been arrested. Indeed, after being on the slip highway verge for an hour, workmen spot us and movie us, saying we shouldn’t be right here.
While Laurence is an avid litter picker, John says it is ‘a bit like mopping up whereas the kitchen faucets are nonetheless working’.
Laurence provides that individuals ‘undergo from litter blindness — they virtually neglect it is there’.
When not pursuing litter louts, John co-runs the British Football Academy, which spots proficient gamers for the Premier League.
His job takes him across the nation and, up to now 12 months, he has pushed 24,000 miles on 39 motorways, and stopped on 250 laborious shoulders, slip roads and roundabouts in pursuit of proof.
He receives tip-offs from the general public and drives to gather the proof. He would not maintain again on his emotions. ‘The entire nation is a dump. Even our rivers are stuffed with s***! It’s a nationwide embarrassment. It’s an appalling indictment of our folks.’
Indeed, a Parliamentary Select Committee in 2015 in contrast England with nations in Europe, Japan and North America, concluding it was arguably probably the most littered nation within the West.
‘You do not have this downside in mainland Europe,’ says Laurence. ‘I’ve lived in Japan and in faculties they do not have caretakers — they make the youngsters clear up.’
So simply why have Britain’s roads turn out to be such an eyesore?
To John, it is a ‘microcosm of what is flawed with British governance. Just a few mates have been saying none of them have delight on this nation, as a result of they’re appalled on the manner politicians act. They suppose, nicely if our leaders do not care they usually break the principles… There’s no instance of management.’
And the overwhelming majority of litter bugs are younger males.
‘They say this younger era is extra environmentally aware — however not everyone seems to be Greta [Thunberg]!’ says John.
He has beforehand slammed ‘soft-touch Britain’ and believes the UK’s coverage in terms of littering, which is a most £150 effective, will not be harsh sufficient.
‘Someone messaged me from Canada saying they will impose as much as $1 million fines!’ says John.
Laurence agrees with harder deterrence, too.
It was Laurence Wells, a Clean Up Britain volunteer and councillor in close by Cobham, who first seen final June simply how dangerous this specific M25 slip highway was
Without change from the highest, John says it is ‘a bit like mopping up whereas the kitchen faucets are nonetheless working’
A spokesperson for National Highways advised the Mail: ‘Littering is a social downside and we’re working laborious to sort out it on our roads. We adjust to our duties below the Environmental Protection Act.
‘Our individuals are litter-picking virtually on daily basis. To preserve them protected we’ve to shut motorway lanes, delaying drivers and costing hundreds of thousands of kilos.
‘We are trialling AI-enabled cameras to collect proof to offer to native authorities who perform enforcement. But if folks do not drop litter within the first place, it would not have to be picked up — so we urge highway customers to take their litter house.’
Clean Up Britain will not be giving up, and plans to launch additional authorized challenges utilizing different examples of soiled roadsides — reminiscent of junction 16 of the M40, the place they counted 67 Red Bull cans — and longer stretches of the M6 and the M62.
‘We have a stupendous nation. But folks do not deal with it with respect or delight,’ says John.
