AS it was such a beautiful day on Tuesday I walked along the canal towpath from Staverton to Semington and then back through the lanes to Hilperton. As I rounded the corner to join Whaddon Lane, two men were clearing a ditch. They were fishing out bags of rubbish which had been deposited there and apparently this was not a one-off.

Every week they have to clear the ditch of someone’s refuse, someone who is too lazy to go to the recycling centre on Canal Road but thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to defile the countryside and leave their mess for someone else to clear.

Of course there was nothing to identify the culprit unfortunately and whilst the reduced hours of the centre have exacerbated this situation there is really no excuse.

So if you were that person please stop for a minute and think how your action spoils a beautiful countryside for people and act as the majority of us do and bag it and bin it responsibly.

Liz Corfield, Staverton