LITTER pickers from the Milk Churn pub in Melksham have made a clean sweep to help tidy up their local area.

Volunteers from the managed house helped to tidy up bustling streets, hedgerows and green spaces within a mile radius to improve the local environment for residents and wildlife.

The move was part of the Hall & Woodhouse brewery’s annual community litter pick event, Founder’s Sweepers, celebrating the day the company was founded in 1777.

Giving up a total of four hours of their time, almost 10 bags of litter were collected by the volunteers.

They added to the 5,000 total which has been gathered and disposed of since the Founder’s Sweepers campaign began ten years ago.

Anthony Woodhouse, Managing Director at the Dorset-based company, said: “Working to support our local communities is something we are incredibly passionate about, and keeping them clean and safe is so important.

“As a thriving hub in a local community, our managed public houses take part in this campaign as a team so they can really make a difference in the neighbourhoods in which they work.

“Litter not only spoils how our beautiful landscapes look, it also creates toxins and pollutants that are harmful to the land, wildlife and livestock.

“Our teams really did their best with the 2018 big clean-up, and after all the hard work we provided them all with a bottle of Badger beer and Founders’ Day celebration cake.”

The Founder’s Sweepers campaign is supported by all of the Hall & Woodhouse 52 managed public houses across the south of England.

It takes place in association with Keep Britain Tidy’s Great British Spring Clean initiative.