Wombles of Lincoln horrified by Portland Street rubbish

A litter picking group has said they are horrified by rubbish being dumped on a Lincoln roadside, which they described as “the street that the council forgot”.

Scattered litter and rubbish bags, a trolley, fly tipped whitegoods and a dumped office chair were a sorry sight on Portland Street on Wednesday, August 4.

The problem was first reported to Lincolnshire County Council under the fly-tipping option on the FixMyStreet website back in April, they said.

It was flagged up again by the group to the city council on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the group said the city council has responded saying it will be passed on to the relevant team.

The rubbish was found on Portland Street in Lincoln on August 4, 2021. | Photo: Wombles of Lincoln

Even a discarded shopping trolly was found among the rubbish. | Photo: Wombles of Lincoln

A spokesperson for the Wombles of Lincoln told The Lincolnite: “We are horrified by the state of the street in our city centre. It is like the street that the council forgot.

“Visitors to our beautiful city will be enjoying these following sites. This is shameful that in a county that is deemed first world people are living next to this. I just find it so heartbreakingly frustrating.

“Some of it was fly-tipping, much of it was general detritus from split bags and dropped litter. It needs a preventative solution and a lot more action to tackle it.”

The problem has been ongoing since at least April 2021. | Photo: Wombles of Lincoln

An old chair was found discarded amongst the other shocking rubbish down Portland Street in Lincoln. | Photo: Wombles of Lincoln

The group says more action is needed to tackle to tackle the problem. | Photo: Wombles of Lincoln

The litter problem has been described as “heartbreakingly frustrating”, | Photo: Wombles of Lincoln

The group, which now has around 800 members, used social media to come together and tackle the littering problem in the area.

It was set up at the beginning of March 2021, inspired by the 1960s fictional characters The Wombles who taught children how to recycle properly. The group was created by Rebecca Dunn, Alice Kinloch and Rebecca Sinclair, in an aim to clean up the streets, parks and roadsides of Lincoln.

City of Lincoln Council were contacted for a statement of response, but there was no reply by the time of publication.