Canoeists from a Nantwich club have been putting paddles to good use by helping clean up the River Weaver in the town.
Members of the Crewe & Nantwich Canoe Club based at Doddington Lake took part in the “Big Paddle Clean Up” project run across the country.
It was a British Canoeing initiative which saw clubs around the UK take to their local waterways to spruce them up.
In total, 10 paddlers at the club took part in the project.
Dave Edwards, spokesman for the 50-member club, said: “We are contacted by British Canoeing with certain projects and they provided the litter pickers, bags, gloves and so on.
“As a club, we’ve always removed bits of rubbish from river where we can and it’s safe to do so.”
During the Covid pandemic, the club we lost its lake base at Congleton and also the swimming baths at Whitchurch.
Dave added: “I negotiated with Cheshire East to access the River Weaver behind Nantwich Lake, which used to be the club’s base many years ago.
“It made sense as a local calm moving water starting point for paddlers.When we first paddled it, we noticed the sheer amount of rubbish in the river.
“When BC offered to provide us with kit to remove litter, it was an obvious choice of river.
“We managed to remove several bags of litter which included a traffic cone, a 10kg steel manhole cover, a 2 man tent, numerous footballs, takeaway trays and so on.”
But despite Dave and his teams best efforts, they were unable to remove a shopping trolley from below the weir.
“We were all disappointed as we were trying to see how hard we could make it for coach Tim “Toady” Moors to paddle the canoe with all the rubbish in!
“Sadly, he made it back to the bank.”
The club plans to run a ‘learn to kayak course’ in August.
You can find more details on the course and the club, here https://fb.me/e/1KfDngC3q
Well done we are lucky to have you and Nantwich litter action volunteers clearing up after mindless morons, great job for our lovely town