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Successful ‘Big Dee Day’ Week

Published: 26/09/2018

As ‘Big Dee Day’ draws to a close Flintshire Countryside Service are proud of another year’s success.  An impressive 30 organisations across Flintshire have been out in force making a difference to the River Dee its estuary and tributaries.

Two litter picks took place at Talacre over the course of the week with ENI, Keep Wales Tidy and volunteers tying together ‘Big Dee Day’ and Marine Conservation Society’s ‘The Great British Beach Clean’.  These teams covered 7000 square meters of beach only finding 1.5 bin bags of rubbish, over half of which were plastic or polystyrene.

Further along the coastal path Warwick Chemicals, Ysgol Bryn Pennant and Flintshire Conservation and Countryside team planted, scattered and laid £1500 worth of bulbs, plants, seed and wild flower turf to brighten up the area.  The team of 27 children and adults worked hard spending a total of 120 hours along the stretch at Mostyn.

McDonalds staff, Presthaven Ranger and Countryside Rangers worked tirelessly in the Llanerch y Mor area to clear more than 10 tonne of fly tip as well as 40 bin bags of litter and rubbish. 

Sustrans Rangers were out again litter picking from Connah’s Quay Dock to the Queensferry bridge.  Using their bikes to follow the cycle path from which they could spot concentrated areas of marine plastics.

A first for the Big Dee Day, Flintshire Coastal Rangers joined forces with the Dee Wildfowlers and staff from the RSPB, MOD, the Deeside Model Aircraft Club and Landmark to clear over 2 tons of rubbish accumulated along the strandline adjacent to the firing range.  Refreshments from Landmark were most welcome for the exhausted volunteers.  Tata Steel assisted with access and removed and disposed of long fibreglass pipes making a huge difference in the appearance of the North Bank of the Dee estuary. They also collected possibly the largest ever items as huge blocks of polystyrene over 3m long and 2m wide were manhandled to shore.

In Flint the RNLI collected around 10 bags of Marine plastics from the foreshore.

Airbus apprentices and Galliford Try staff tackled the north and south bank of the river from Saltney ferry to the English/welsh border joined by Coastal Rangers and over 20 volunteers filled bags with Marine litter. 

Quay Watermen volunteers worked on the restoration of the old dock next to the Kathleen and May heritage centre. They removed over 10 bags of soil and grass covering heritage features of the old dock. Volunteers and members manned the boats and cut away buddleia growing from the dock walls. 

Tesco were litter picking the whole of the Castle Walk circular in Flint getting into places not often visited to remove over a ton and a half of rubbish including printers, sewing machines, old bikes, Sainsbury’s trolleys, car radios and a huge amount of accumulated Marine plastics along the foreshore. This was just one part of Tesco’s day with staff members covering 5 other counties carrying out a variety of tasks.

The Friends of Wepre Park were out litter picking the brook in Wepre Park, the ARCH group litter picked in Greenfield valley and the Holywell scouts followed that with a litter pick from Greenfield valley to Greenfield Dock.  Also the Friends of Bagillt Foreshore held a litter pick in Bettisfield and Toyota will be joining forces with Groundwork cutting back and clearing up in Connah’s Quay rounding off another hugely successful year for the ‘Big Dee Day’.

Tom Woodall, Head of Access and Natural Environment, Flintshire said;

 “This year’s ‘Big Dee Day’ week of events have been incredible and we are very proud of the work from our conservation and community groups and are grateful as ever for the support of local businesses. We can now look forward to next year’s events and hope even more groups choose to get involved to make the River Dee a nicer place for all”

Cllr. Carolyn Thomas, Cabinet Member for Streetscene and Countryside said;

“The Big Dee Day is now a proven model for tackling the scourge of marine litter highlighted by the recent BBC Blue Planet series. I would like to thank those people who continually litter pick our coastline as individual volunteers and in groups from Talacre to Chester. They are out up to three times a week and are seen and known by our Coastal Rangers. Many thanks.